


Milk and Honey

by tsukinofaerii



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Fae & Fairies, Glitter, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Season/Series 02 AU, Sibling Incest, gratuitous cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 10:59:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1938372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukinofaerii/pseuds/tsukinofaerii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weird Shit is happening in Beacon Hills, California. Which Stiles isn't particularly worried about; it's par for the course, and at least no one's dying this time. As long as there aren't any complications, everything should be fine.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Sam and Dean are living examples of the word "complications".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Milk and Honey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clex_monkie89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clex_monkie89/gifts).



> This fic has a funny story attached! It was written for clex_monkie89's birthday... in summer 2013 For various reasons it's been in progress or in editing ever since. I finally threw up my hands and admitted my anxiety over this was doing nothing useful, so here it is being posted for the Full Moon. 
> 
> It was initially plotted before S3, and mostly written before S3b, so you can just pretend none of that ever happened. 
> 
> It's set roughly 9 months after [Hunting the Snark](http://archiveofourown.org/works/580444). If you haven't read that, all you need to know is Everyone is Banging Everyone Else.

"It's past noon. You're not out of bed yet?"

Stiles groaned and twisted around enough to glare at Scott with one eye over Erica's bare shoulder. It was a good glare, he thought. One of his better ones. Practice was paying off. "Not all of us come from a long line of hunters, supernatural creatures or freaking _nurses_."

Scott smiled brightly, dimples disgustingly sweet even at the ridiculously early hour of Sunday afternoon. Dimples should be _disallowed_ when Stiles wasn't awake yet. "Lydia's up."

"She counts as a supernatural creature," Stiles insisted, burying his face back in Erica's shoulder. Boyd was a pleasantly firm support at his back, keeping him comfortably wedged in place. It was only them in the bed, which wasn't as rare as it had been over the winter when school and family had been at their worst, but still felt decadent. Early spring sunlight shined through the window, at the perfect angle to be warm without actually hitting him in the eyes. Perfection like that didn't happen very often. "What sort of sick, twisted mind gets a man out of bed on Sunday?"

"Come on, don't be that way." The bed dipped as Scott crawled up onto it on his hands and knees. Stiles kept his face stubbornly hidden when Scott's knee landed next to his hip, in the tiny crevice of space between him and Erica. The pillow moved next when Scott put his weight on it and leaned down, nuzzling Stiles' shoulder. "Derek's making pancakes. And bacon."

"Bacon?" One of Stiles' walls moved, blonde hair flopping over his face as Erica rolled over, peering blearily up at Scott. "Did you say bacon?" 

The other wall shifted, pulling away to leave a hole in Stiles' defenses. "He definitely said bacon," Boyd rumbled, voice thick with sleep. Blankets shifted as they both rolled out of bed, grabbing their clothes and scrambling downstairs to the promised bacony goodness, leaving Stiles alone in bed with Scott the Awakener. 

Tipping back his head into the pillows, Stiles yelled, "I hate you all! Traitors!"

Scott grinned shamelessly, as if he hadn't known Erica would move heaven and earth for bacon. He nuzzled Stiles' jaw, a dusting of baby fuzz tickling his neck. "No you don't."

"No I don't," Stiles agreed sadly. He was whipped. He knew it. There was no point in pretending otherwise. "I'm still not getting out of bed."

"Yes you are." Scott dragged his nose down Stiles' neck, nibbling delicately at the skin. In spite of himself, Stiles groaned, lifting his chin to give Scott more play. "Allison told me to get you out of bed. So I am." 

"This is not the way to do it," Stiles muttered. He worked his hands free of the tangle of blankets to slide them up under Scott's shirt, spread across his back. It flexed and shivered under his touch, always surprisingly sensitive no matter how many times Stiles touched him. Scott's knee settled between his thighs, just a little pressure against Stiles' morning wood that still had him rocking up into it. "In fact, this is pretty much the opposite of making me want out of bed."

He felt rather than heard Scott's laugh, a puff of air on his neck. "But it's waking you up." 

Realization hit Stiles right between the eyes, at exactly the same moment that Scott's hand slipped under his boxers to wrap around his dick. "You _sneaky asshole_ —" he gasped, pulling away to try and glare up at his best friend. 

It didn't work. Scott looked incredibly pleased with himself, sitting back to peel down the blankets from Stiles' hips. "I know."

His hand worked Stiles' dick, palm dry and a little too tight for early-morning handjobs. Which, Stiles had to assume, was a deliberate assault on his sleepy self. In only a few minutes, Stiles was riding it, teeth clenched as his balls drew up. Then Scott's thumb brushed _just there_ under the head and Stiles was gone, back arching as come splattered over his stomach. 

Stiles flopped back, spread-eagle and panting. He felt utterly relaxed. And also utterly awake. "Damn you. I'm going to get you for that."

"Promise?" Leaning down, Scott licked up one of the drops of come from a mole by his belly button. "Come get breakfast." 

Together, they managed to yank Stiles out of bed and cleaned up with some of the baby wipes that lived in the nightstand. Using Scott as a crutch, Stiles lurched downstairs to the kitchen, where the pack was still lounging around the den in their night clothes and underwear. Derek was nowhere visible, but Stiles could make out the hiss of a hot pan and the smell of apples, onions and sweet fatty goodness that was Bacon Hale Style. 

They didn't get to spend much time together as a pack, between school and less-than-supportive-yet-hopefully-oblivious parents. It felt weirdly domestic, to stagger downstairs and see Isaac arguing with Lydia over the television while Allison worked on homework and Jackson pretended he wasn't deeply invested in cartoon ponies on one of the local channels. 

Stiles tried not to think about how weird it was going to be in a few short months, when college dragged them all away. They'd work it out somehow, even if it meant rough weekends and huge long distance bills. No reason to get weird about it and upset everyone.

Good intentions, unfortunately, didn't so anything to stop feelings from stinking, because Isaac twisted to look at him with a worried frown, and Jackson shuffled over to leave the center spot on the couch empty. Making a face, Stiles flopped down in the offered spot and leaned over to grab the remote from Lydia and a kiss from Scott, who wandered toward the promise of bacon. Fluttershy was currently cowering behind Applejack for reasons unknown. There were worse shows to wake up to, even if he did have to strain to hear it; werewolves tended to keep the TV on the lowest possible volume settings. "No one gets this until you agree. Which means we'll just watch cartoons anyway like we always do." 

Lydia frowned. She'd started keeping her hair in a braid while they slept, and the result was a ropey mess of strawberry-blonde frizz and escaped curls. The imperfection of it made Stiles' heart flutter with an old ache, but not enough of one that he didn't yank the remote out of her reach when she tried to grab for it. 

"I just want to watch _one thing_ on the Science Channel that isn't a Mythbusters rerun," she pouted, sinking down into the corner of the couch. But she didn't try and grab the remote, which was a bonus. 

"It's not like we ever get to watch the cooking channel around here _anyway_ ," Isaac grumbled. He was perched on the back with his knees over either her shoulders, and sulking in an apt imitation of Lydia, but with less seductive smolder. 

Or maybe Stiles was just biased in Lydia's favor. No one ever said he wasn't allowed to have favorites. "The Mythbusters are awesome in all their forms, and I'll not have you disparaging their reruns," Stiles declared, turning his eyes on the TV and all its animated goodness. The volume was incredibly soft, out of deference to werewolf ears, but he could still hear enough to follow. "Let me know when you've made your—oh, _come on_."

On the screen, My Little Pony vanished into a flurry of cheap CGI, the words _Breaking News_ spinning crazily in front of a globe. A newscaster appeared, talking about some explosion in downtown Beacon Hills and _no reported injuries_ , which was always nice to hear.

"Oooh, news." Lydia shifted forward. "Compromise?" 

Isaac took advantage of the change in space by slipping down into the spot she'd vacated. His arms slid around her waist, cuddling her close. "Compromise." 

Now Stiles would never know what happened to Sweet Apple Acres. At least, not until he pirated the episode offline. Scott and Boyd shuffled in and leaned over his shoulder, staring hard at the screen as they nibbled purloined bacon. Sinking down, Stiles crossed his arms and stared at his feet in a sulk, definitively showing the TV how displeased he was with it.

It worked for all of three minutes before Jackson nudged Stiles' ankle and said, "Hey, isn't that you dad?" 

Immediately Stiles' chin came up. On the screen, his father was talking with a handful of other men in uniform. From the way his hands were moving, it looked like he was giving orders. Mouth dropping open, Stiles hit the volume button until it was closer to human levels. 

" _—of the Beacon County Sheriff's office reports that they do not yet know the cause of the explosion, nor the origin of the flowers currently blocking Applebarn Street. Standing by live at the scene is BHN's own Christine Sharp, who is currently with Daisy Parnel, owner and proprietor of Daisy's Daisies._ "

The camera panned over the scene slowly, taking in every gory, floral detail. Cars were backed up as far as the camera could see, and lines of uniformed officers were working to hold back crowds of onlookers. None of that was what caught Stiles' attention, though. What did it most was the piles and piles of flowers. They sparkled in the sun, looming overhead higher than some of the nearby buildings. 

Boyd spoke for them all when he said, "What the hell."

* * *

_Click-tab. Click. Click click._

Keys tapped away under Sam's fingers as he tabbed through the websites of what had to be every major newspaper in the nation and one from Japan. The table rocked in time with Dean's bouncing knee, making Sam miss his stroke every couple of keys. 

As usual, they were camped out in another crappy motel somewhere along the I-10, halfway between Los Angeles and Phoenix. The particular motel they'd crash landed in was crappier than usual, featuring water stains on the ceiling, a single mattress that smelled like mothballs and an air conditioner that barely kept the room from becoming an oven even in the mild spring heat. The only good thing to its name was the water pressure, which could have been put to better use pressure washing the greasy fingerprints off the wall. Places that charged by the hour would have been ashamed to count it among their number.

Normally they would have driven right past it, but they'd been on the road for thirty hours and they couldn't risk holing up in a rest stop. Partly because the rest stops out west sucked, and partly because cops liked hanging around them and pretending to do their jobs. A nameless shithole a mile off the main highway was better than that at least.

"There's got to be something here," Dean muttered, flipping through a stack of print outs too fast to possibly be reading them. They'd spread out their laptops and newspaper clippings of interest across the hotel's shitty excuse for a table. The piles were measurable in inches. "A kappa, a ghost—I'd even take a fucking vampire. Something. Anything with teeth." 

Sam sighed and ran his hand through his sweat-sticky hair and leaned back, rubbing his hand over his eyes. Hours at the computer had left them blurred and aching. "There was that siren back in Virginia," he offered a little hopelessly. "We can go back, take her out, maybe hit up a few haunted houses on the way."

Dean actually paused, but ended up shaking his head, eyes locked on the clipping in his hand. His legs stretched out under the table until their feet bumped together. "I said _teeth_ , Sammy. Worst thing she was doing was luring married men to bed. Not worth the gas."

It took actual, physical effort for Sam to keep himself from saying _I noticed_. Nothing had happened, after all. And bringing it up again would just give Dean more ammunition. Besides, he was probably right. A siren out for a little nonviolent, consensual action wasn't actually something they usually would bother with. 

They'd had a slow couple of months. Either the monsters had taken a vacation or they'd suddenly developed the ability to be discreet. Whichever it was, it was driving Dean up the wall, and that drove Sam right along with him. Sam couldn't really remember a time when they weren't hunting that wasn't mostly caused by one of then being some variation of dead. Vacations and downtime and _slow months_ that weren't trauma-induced just didn't happen to people named Winchester. 

_Click, click, click_. The Enquirer, World News Weekly, the Sun and CNN flipped through Sam's browser window. Experience had taught him exactly where to click to find the good stuff. When there was good stuff to be found, at least. 

"Okay," Sam said, finally giving up and closing his laptop lid. When that wasn't enough, he leaned forward to cradle his forehead in his hands. "Not the siren. Maybe something else—if murder's down, how about non-murder? Mysterious weather, miraculous cures, that sort of thing?" 

He could feel Dean's judgmental eyes without needing to look at them. "Non-murder?" 

One of Sam's shoulders rolled in a shrug. "Might be nice to get there on time for once."

There was a heavy pause, and Sam wondered if he should have said something else, something less honest. They'd spent a lot of their lives arriving just in time to clean up the bodies, but being true didn't mean much. Some truths were better left by the side of the road.

Dean cleared his throat. "Yeah, okay. What about this one? Small town in north Cal. Couple years ago had a nasty problem with people dying from 'wildlife' and some pretty massive 'gang violence'." Somehow, Dean managed to pronounce the scare quotes. "Seems to have cleared up, but now they've got giant teddy bears appearing in grocery stores, fast growing local forest that has biologists stumped and—get this— _flower power_." 

That made Sam lift his head, just to see Dean's barely-restrained grin. "Flower power."

Brandishing the news article like a poet about to read his latest masterpiece, Dean cleared his throat. "A loss of a beloved local business occurred Sunday evening as Daisy's Daisies, est. 1978 and run by Beacon Hills resident Daisy Parnel, exploded with _flowers_ ," he read. "The burst of blooms blocked four lanes of traffic on Applebarn St., which is anticipated to be closed until the Sheriff's office completes their investigation. According to an anonymous source, no cause for the explosion has been found as of yet." His eyes skimmed down the page. "There's more, but it's mostly about Daisy's fame as a florist. Apparently sticking around for a few decades makes you big talk in a small town." 

"Flowers aren't exactly known for being combustible," Sam mused aloud, trailing his fingers over the top of his laptop. Something niggled at him, but he couldn't quite get a finger on it. "How bad was the fire?"

"That's the weirdest part." With a couple quick movements, Dean folded up the news clipping and sent it soaring over the back of Sam's laptop to crash land on the keyboard. "There wasn't one. All the damage looks like it was done from by the flowers."

Unfolding the clipping, Sam looked at the picture of the crime scene that the paper had helpfully included. What he assumed was the florist's shop had been reduced to rubble, and littered across the area... "That's a lot of flowers." 

He couldn't identify most of them; the first segment had been pulped by the pressure, but the closer the pile got to the rubble the more recognizably floral they were. A couple of cops were standing nearby, providing a handy proportion reference. "A _lot_ of flowers."

"Four lanes of road," Dean shrugged. 

Sam skimmed through the article, looking for any little details that might be useful. "It does look like our kind of business," he finally admitted. "And something making flower shops explode could be dangerous. No telling if the next one will be occupied or— wait." Something in the article caught his eye. He reread it again, more slowly. "Beacon Hills. Isn't that where Aunt Claudia lived?"

After the whole Grandpa Campbell mess, they'd taken time to track down their relatives so they knew how to avoid them. Claudia and Travis had been a surprise find. They'd known their mother had extended family, including cousins; what they hadn't known was that one cousin had run off to marry some loser traveling musician in California and had then proceeded to drop off the map. Aunt Claudia was dead—the local paper had run an obit back in 2004—but their uncle by marriage was still out there in California. Presumably matured a little, since the last Christmas card they'd gotten had come from an address that was an actual house and not just a PO box. 

"Sounds right. Had a kid, I think." Dean drummed his fingers on the table, staring at the wall for a minute. "I guess we could stop by. Make connections, see if they're in the business, and look up this flower thing while we're at it." 

"Maybe we shouldn't." The town name stared back at Sam from its nest of words in the article. Family outside Dean was _trouble_. He wasn't sure he wanted to reopen that can of worms. "It sounded like they were out of it." 

"So was mom." 

Sam winced.

Reaching over, Dean pushed Sam's laptop closed. "We're doing it. Beacon Hills, tomorrow." His eyebrows rose challengingly. "Right?" 

Rubbing a hand over his face, Sam nodded. "Fine. "

Dean grinned and leaned over the table to smack a kiss to Sam's mouth. "Sunny California, here we come."

* * *

Dean jostled for position ahead of Sam while they strode up to the door. The place was nice. Not the nicest they'd seen, but one of those decent middle class neighborhoods that were vanishing like snowflakes in spring these days. Two stories, picket fence, and frilly white curtains blocking the view through the windows. No flower boxes or anything, but the grass was mowed and it looked reasonably well kept up. It even had a garage, the door closed and free of graffiti. 

He rubbed the back of his neck, fingers splayed over the start of a sunburn just under the edge of his t-shirt collar. They'd discussed trying to put on a good image, but the idea had been ditched after a little thought. If they were in town long enough, around family enough, it wouldn't last. If they weren't then it wouldn't matter.

"Looks like Uncle Travis's gone up in the world." Dean craned his head, trying to take in everything. He wanted to ask if the place was even real, but it didn't have that cardboard cutout, too-perfect feeling illusions sometimes had. There were a few stains on the sidewalk, and a kid shrieking in the distance, a chip on the door's paint. Little details. They'd learned to watch for those.

Sam shrugged and took advantage of Dean's distraction to jam his thumb in the doorbell. The chime came out muffled and soft, _cushy_. It was the doorbell of someone who wanted to be able to ignore a doorbell without too much annoyance. "Not everyone can live by the guitar forever."

"Hippies gotta eat," Dean got out, just before the door was swung open and they found themselves staring at a middled aged man in a cop uniform. A sheriff's badge gleamed on his chest.

The Winchesters took a simultaneous step back. 

The Sheriff blinked at them, eyebrows rising as he took them in, from their travel-worn shirts to their boots. He crossed his arms, leaning casually to block the doorway. "Can I help you boys?" 

"Um, yeah," Sam started, pulling himself together, going all shoulders-back and chin-up. Probably exposure to all those baby lawyers at Standford, Dean figured. Still, it was kind of hot. "We're looking for... Travis Stilinski? Is he in?" There was a long, tense pause. "Sir?" 

Eyebrows went even farther up, wrinkling his forehead. His face was dark, burned by sun and wind and age. It reminded Dean of the way their dad looked after a long hunt. "You've got him."

Sam gaped for a second, and Dean took his chance, bumping his brother out of the way and holding out his hand. "We're Dean and Sam Winchester. Mary and John's kids? We were just in the area and thought we'd catch up. Or, you know, catch on," he lied vaguely. 

The Sheriff took it after a suspicious pause, giving Dean the firm handshake of a man who'd gotten into public office. The honorability was _oozing_ off him. "Mary... Winchester?" Each word unwrinkled his face a little, until the suspicion was nearly gone. His eyes darted back and forth between the two of them, top to bottom, left to right. It was like being profiled again, except worse because this time Dean hadn't even done anything that would have gotten him arrested. At least, not recently in the state of California.

Dean nodded and gave his best _don't shoot me_ grin. It was a look that got a lot of practice. "Hey Uncle Travis." 

At first, Dean was pretty sure they were going to get the door slammed in their faces. It wouldn't have been the first time. But instead he snorted, shaking his head. "Uncle Travis," he said, bemused. "I don't think anyone's ever called me that." After another hair-raising moment, he stepped aside, jerking his head. "Well, come on in, then. I'm not due for a shift for a few hours. We can have some coffee, and you two can tell me what you've been up to."

* * *

There was a freaking 1969 Impala parked in front of his house.

Stiles sat outside, wrists crossed over the steering as he stared at the car. He was losing precious Solving Weird Mysteries of Beacon Hills time, but that time didn't come in sleek, shiny black that glinted in the sunlight like a promise of girls, boys, and fun in a too-small-but-worth-it backseat. 

It was about time his dad had a midlife crisis. Stiles had been hoping for it to hit a year earlier, when he'd have had the maximum number of Almost Legal years to revel in the material frivolity, but now wasn't bad. He was eighteen and only a couple months shy of fleeing the nest. With any luck, his dad would get over it just in time for it to be a hand-me-down car at college.

_Ha_ , Stiles snorted. Like _that_ was ever going to happen. He was going to have to pry that beauty from his father's clutches. 

In the center console, his phone chimed with a new text message. The name _Scott_ flashed across the screen. Still watching the car, Stiles picked it up and scrolled through. 

Dude, where are you?

Blinking, he looked at the time. " _Shit!_ " He'd lost fifteen whole minutes drooling. Grabbing his bag from the passenger seat, Stiles threw himself out of the Jeep legs-first, not bothering to lock it for a quick run inside. 

He dashed into the house through the kitchen door, slamming it behind him. Keeping one hand up, he steadied his backpack over his shoulder as he made the sharp turn through the dining room, past the three men sitting at the table and into the living room. "Hi Dad I see you finally gave in and bought that classic we'll talk about it later love you gotta run meet Scott I'll—" 

Halfway up the stairs his brain caught up with his feet, nearly planting his face into the wall when he suddenly stopped.

Slowly, Stiles backed down the stairs and back into the dining room. Pointing with two fingers, he indicated the visitors. They were grungy, travel-worn and wearing too much plaid even for his questionable-according-to-Lydia tastes. The three of them had bottles of beer—not the good stuff, but the cheap kind that his dad kept for casual drinking. "Did you bring your work home again?" 

"Ha, ha, ha." Stiles' father jerked his chin at the two men. "Stiles, these are your cousins, Sam and Dean." When Stiles just stared, he continued, "From your mom's side of the family. The Campbells?" 

"We're Winchesters, actually," the darker-haired one added with a half-shrug and a grin. "Dad's name. Our moms were cousins, actually."

"Oh. Hi." Stiles kept staring. There was a silent agreement in the Stilinski household that they didn't talk much about the maternal side of the family. His dad had occasionally—drunkenly—confessed that they didn't think he was good enough, and they'd had to elope. They both knew that there was extended family out there somewhere—cousins, aunts, grandparents, the whole works. But it never really came up. Stiles didn't give a damn about anyone who'd practically disowned his mom for picking the wrong guy, and his dad still held a little bit of a grudge. 

All they needed was each other, anyway. More people would just get in the way. 

"So..." Carefully he dropped his bag and sidled into the room, keeping his back tight against the wall. "Sam and Dean, huh? You guys... staying in town for awhile, then? Or just passing through." 

The Winchesters exchanged a look. "A little bit of both, actually," Sam said. "We're between jobs and have enough of a nest egg to take our time looking for the next one. Since we were in the area anyway, we thought we'd catch up with the part of our mom's family we never met."

"But you've met the others." A hint of accusation weighed in Stiles' voice that he didn't even make an effort to suppress. His father glared at him, eyebrows semaphoring the distinct possibility of being grounded for rudeness. Stiles ignored him. "Great-Uncle Samuel and the rest." 

Dean snorted, lifting his beer for a long sip. The bottle was still mostly full, even though the condensation had dripped most of the way off. "Yeah, we did. They're a bag of dicks." 

A startled laugh slipped out of the Sheriff. He lifted his bottle. "I'll drink to that." They clinked together, and Stiles' shoulders rounded a little. 

"Look, I really need to meet Scott for lacrosse practice," Stiles explained, eyes darting between his father and the Winchesters. "Coach thinks that I could improve enough to play finals without half the team being mowed down this year. Are you two staying here?"

"We've got a hotel room," Sam smiled, watching Stiles with a knowing expression. "We wouldn't want to just breeze into town and impose—"

"I keep telling you, it's no imposition for family," the Sheriff interrupted, tilting his beer at them. "You boys shouldn't have to stay in some motel. We've got a spare bedroom, it's no trouble—" 

"Dad," Stiles butted in, before things could just deteriorate into a battle of manners. Hilarious as it would be, he really didn't feel like having to dodge two total strangers on a daily basis. It was bad enough hiding everything from his dad as it was. He really, really didn't want to have the Polyamorous Creatures of the Night discussion for at least another year, when he was in college and could avoid phone calls. "Maybe they don't want to see you in your bathrobe. They just got here, just met us—just let them, okay?" 

"And we wouldn't want to scare off newfound relatives with Sam's feet," Dean added in with a shit-eating grin, bumping his brother under the table with his knee. Sam bumped back, hooking their legs under the table for an odd little wrestling match that left Stiles blinking. "Let's just say he's lucky I'm his brother and kind of stuck with him." 

"Ha, ha," Sam rolled his eyes, apparently either not noticing or not caring that he was practically playing footsie with his brother. 

Maybe it was a brother thing. Scott was practically Stiles' brother in every way that counted, and look how that turned out. The only person Stiles knew with actual close siblings was Derek, and that was a minefield of Questions Best Left Unasked. 

Another buzz in his pocket made him jump. Nervously, Stiles glanced at the kitchen clock, then scooped up his bag, backing for the door. "Great, so that's decided! I'll see you guys later, okay? Okay." Before anyone could stop him, he bolted for the stairs.

Behind him, his father said, "I'm so sorry—you know how teenagers are. Now, what did you boys say you do?"

Then the bedroom door swung shut and the conversation vanished. Quick as he could, Stiles ruffled through his training equipment, the stuff that was cheap enough it wouldn't matter if it got broken in a werewolf-related incident. His backpack he emptied of books and filled with his notebooks, a spare first aid kit, and a jar of powdered mountain ash he'd stolen from Scott's boss that Derek had asked him to bring over to the house. It wasn't often Derek asked for anything other than to be left to brood, so Stiles was willing to oblige. 

As soon as everything was packed, he beat feet downstairs, bypassing the dining room to make straight for the safety of the front yard and his Jeep. He'd parked behind the ridiculously old Impala that was taking up his usual spot and making his piece of crap Jeep look even more like she might fall apart at any given second. The car glinted black with smooth, clean lines and a perfect wax job in the late spring sun. She was the kind of car that could give Derek's Camaro a run for her money in sheer class. 

"Man, Dad must be drooling," Stiles muttered to himself as he slipped into his girl and patted her steering wheel. "Don't worry, babe, you're the only one for me."

As he started to pull out, something strange about the car caught his attention. Something had been drawn in white chalk on the chrome bumper, almost invisible except when the sun hit it just right. Squinting, Stiles leaned forward over his steering wheel. "A pentacle?" 

Not quite, though. There were some other symbols chalked around it, a weird T-looking loop and some other stuff that looked like they belonged in one of Deaton's books. And going by the way the last two years had gone, weird meant trouble. Quickly, Stiles snapped a picture with his phone, sending it to Derek with a quick, This look familiar? 

About three blocks down the road, his phone rang. Long practice let him pick it up and juggle it to his shoulder with a minimum of visibly distracted driving. "Yo." 

"Where did you see that?" Derek asked with his usual grace and politesse. 

"Why hello, Derek, lovely to hear from you again. Yes, I missed you, too, kissy kissy." Pulling up to a stoplight, Stiles spied a cop jar. Casually, he juggled the phone so it was mostly hidden by his head. "Look, I'm on my way. Be there in ten minutes. We can talk about it then."

"No," Derek snapped. It didn't have the edge to it that it used to. Domestication turned even the baddest alpha werewolf into a squishy teddy bear. Who know? "You're going to tell me about it now. It could important."

_Isn't it always?_ Stiles thought to himself, mentally running his long list of Mysteries that needed Investigating. Granted, flower explosions weren't on par with killer lizards, but it was still one thing after another. 

What he actually said was, "I just had unexpected cousins pop up from out of town, Sam and Dean Winchester. That was on their bumper." The cop car next to the Jeep rolled forward a few inches. The deputy in the passenger seat raised her eyebrows pointedly and mimed putting the phone down. "Gotta go, Derek, I'll see you in ten."

"Wait, Stiles, did you say Winch—"

"Bye." He hung up and dropped the phone into the middle console before grinning a little sickly and waving at the deputy, showing off his empty hand.

The deputy smiled and waved back.

* * *

"The _Winchesters_ are in town and you didn't tell me?" Derek perched on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees and rubbing his temples like he had a migraine coming on. He'd been like that since Stiles had arrived and, according to Scott's frustrated expression, probably for some time before. "Sometimes I think you have a death wish."

"Why are you always so melodramatic?" Erica was stretched out over most of the remainder of the couch, with her head in Boyd's lap and feet against Derek's hip. She angled her head to glare at him, frowning. "It's always the end of the world."

"Because sometimes it _is_ the end of the world," Derek snapped. "Especially when the Winchesters are involved. Those type of people don't care about collateral damage. If you'd given me some warning, I'd have had the pack scatter until they were gone. Now it's too late." 

"How was I supposed to know?" Stiles demanded, sprawled over his least favorite chair, arms crossed, ass shifting against the bite of wood slats and pokey springs. His feet and fingers tapped nervously, anxiety making him twitchy. "I'm not the one who was raised by a family of hunters. I've got no connections here."

Allison shrugged. She'd taken over one of the bar stools Derek had purchased, apparently ignorant of the fact that they didn't have a _bar_. Isaac and Scott had the remaining two stools, their three-way game of footsie devastatingly obvious. "I've never heard of them either. We don't really deal much outside the main families—Eriksons, Argents, a few others. I can ask my dad, but..."

But none of them wanted Chris Argent anywhere near their business. There'd been too many close calls and, in Stiles' opinion, moments of extremely questionable judgment. As a teenager, he thought he had a pretty good line on questionable judgment, and the whole Argent family had blown past that line so much that it could circle around and cross it again at any moment in a circumnavigation of clusterfuckery. Worse, the more involved Chris was in pack business, the more likely he was to find out about their group arrangement, and then it would be shut down faster than you could say _chastity belt_.

Awkward with added wolfsbane shotguns. It would be a thing.

"Okay, so what do we do?" Stiles asked, feeling a little helpess. "We can't just— let them run around doing whatever they want. That's just going to end in tears."

"And bloodshed," Isaac added helpfully, visibly perking up at the option of violence, eyes bright. "A lot of bloodshed." 

"Probably a kidnapping or two." Erica's mouth twisted to the side, her bare toes digging into Derek's leg. 

"Someone dying. Again," was Boyd's opinion. He sounded much too serene for Stiles' comfort, right up until he said, "Maybe Peter."

That, Stiles could roll with. So of course Derek had to shut it down with an immediate, "We're not calling Peter."

Stiles made a disappointed noise. He wished Lydia were there. She was good at squeezing information from even the toughest of sources. But a pack meeting about exploding flowers couldn't compete with the Future Young Dictators club or whatever it was she was doing. 

"Maybe if a certain _alpha_ told us what he knows?" Scott ask, wobbling sideways on the stool. One of his feet was trapped in a vise between Allison and Isaac's, their game of footsie quickly becoming a tug of war. "Since he seems to know what they're about." 

Before Scott had even finished speaking, Derek started shaking his head. "Not enough. Just that they're trouble. They've been at the center of every major supernatural event for the past nine years. The Winchesters are loaded, lethal and they leave a lot of bodies behind."

Stiles bit his lip. "So we run them out," he said, lacing his fingers together and flexing them nervously. "Without letting them know there's werewolves in Beacon Hills. That's just peachy."

Boyd snorted. "Yeah, that's going to be easy. It's so quiet around here, they'll get bored. Probably they came for the scenery anyway."

"Your sarcasm is noted and appreciated." The fidgety, need-to-move feeling in Stiles' legs got to be too much. He pushed up out of the chair, starting to pace. He tried to focus on that, on the jerk-thump of his steps rather than the creeping realization that there were two hunters even now sharing a beer with his dad, telling him who-knew-what and possibly putting his life in danger after Stiles had worked _so damned hard_ to keep him safe. "What else do you think we should do, though? Unless we want to kill them, we're short on options."

Allison cleared her throat delicately, leaning forward so she was barely balanced on her bar stool, freeing her feet from Isaac and Scott. "None of you are going to like this, but I think I have an idea."

* * *

The diner was bustling, the way a diner always did in a small town around dinner time. It was nice and familiar, the sort of place Sam had spent at good chunk of his childhood in. Ugly blue vinyl seats, slightly stained Formica and linoleum floors all added up to it being a sister of a thousand other places across the country. The food smelled good, though. It wasn't a home-cooked meal, but it didn't come prepackaged with awkward family reminiscing and lies. Probably the only reason they'd gotten out of that was because "Uncle Travis" had a shift to fill. 

At the Beacon Hills County Sheriff's Department. 

"Do you think he believed us?" Sam asked, skimming through the offered salads. None of them were more creative than a standard garden salad with extra toppings and a different dressing. "He looked pretty eager to get out the door." 

Dean kicked up his heels on the other booth, slouching back in his booth and staring blankly at the menu. "He didn't buy a word of it." He flexed the menu, flipping it over to the burgers. "Doesn't matter. He's just an excuse to be in town. We'll solve the case and be gone before he thinks to run a background check."

"Or he might just run one anyway," Sam had to point out. The door jingled open behind him. "You saw the newspapers. This town's seen a lot of weird things lately."

"And we'll just be another one." Dean looked up over the edge of the menu, eyebrows raised. "Don't look now, Sammy, but I think we have company." 

Of course, Sam had to look after that. The group that had come in were a group of three of guys and two girls, high school age, maybe a little older. A brunette girl was chatting with the elderly waitress, who was not-so-discreetly pointing out their table. Then the group split, one hanging back by the door and the brunette headed straight for them while the other three found an open booth.

The girl leaned over the table. It let her jacket hang open enough to flash a handgun and a couple of knives. "You must be the Sheriff's nephews, Dean and Sam. Mind if I have a seat?" She smiled broadly enough to flash her dimples, innocent as pie until Sam looked in her eyes. The last time he'd seen eyes like those, it had been on something trying to kill him.

Dean slouched down some more, deliberately stretching his legs over the other seat. His heels ground together, knocking dirt onto the vinyl. "Sorry, honey, but this seat's taken."

Her smile vanished. Reaching down, she picked up his feet and twisted, shoving them off the booth. Dean flailed as the move nearly shoved him off his perch, grabbing for the table to right himself. 

She dropped down into the vacant spot next to Sam and folded her hands, glaring in challenge. Dean stared right back. Sam fought the urge to wave his menu between them to see if they'd blink. 

After a few seconds, Dean snorted and crossed his arms. "What do you want? Big bad ass, flashing your hardware. You think that little thing's going to scare us?" 

Her jaw tightened, a tiny smile bringing her dimples out again. "Unlike some people, I don't have anything to compensate for." Leaning forward, she continued, "I don't have time to waste on you two clowns, so I'm going to make this short. My name's Allison Argent, and I want to know what the hell you think you're doing in my town." 

With a snort, Dean started to sit up straight, probably to say something that would get them shot, but Sam threw up a hand before he could. "Did you say Argent?" he asked, buying time. "As in, _the_ Argents?" 

The Argents weren't anyone Sam and Dean had come across in person. They were an old family who focused mostly on werewolves, with the odd ghost as the need arose. Mostly, from what Sam remembered of their Dad's journal, they were snobs who didn't like newbies getting into the business. Unfortunately, they were snobs with a lot of firepower and even more connections. _Official_ connections. To people like small town sheriffs.

Allison nodded, dark brown curls bobbing around her cheeks. She didn't look like she belonged to a centuries old family of hunters. If anything, she looked like she should have been planning for prom or sipping milkshakes with someone her own age. Not breaking a dozen concealed carry laws. "Exactly. _The_ Argents. So are you going to answer my question or not?" 

Dean shoved Sam's hand out of the way, leaning forward in his seat. "Hold on, wait a minute here. So you're telling me that the Argent family is in this town, and they sent a _kid_?" 

Pearly white teeth flashed in a sharp smile that wouldn't have looked out of place on a shark. "This _kid_ is the _head_ of this branch of the family," she explained, voice soft and sweet as honey. "Now, either answer my question, or I'm just going to give the signal to my friends over there. And I promise, you don't want that." 

Sam twisted to look over at her "friends". On cue one of the guys she'd come in with turned around, eyebrows raised. He looked like the sort of person Sam wouldn't have wanted to tangle with casually: big white guy, muscles barely contained by his leather jacket a permanent five o'clock shadow. The dark-skinned dude next to him was a wall of muscle and good looks like something out of a soap opera, and the blonde girl was straight up on par with the first dude, leather and all. The only one that wasn't threatening was the one by the door, who had a head full of curls and looked more like a runner than a fighter.

Three counts of Trouble, a dish of annoyance and an _Argent_ in a small town where they wanted to keep their heads down: not a promising start. 

When Sam looked back, Dean was making a face. He'd clearly seen everything Sam had, but where Sam's instinct was to just give in, his brother looked like he wanted a fight. "Dean," Sam said warningly, raising his eyebrows. "Just tell her. We don't have anything to hide." 

For a second, Dean stared back at him defiantly. Then he turned his glare on Allison. "We're visiting family. That's all." 

It took a lifetime of experience for Sam to keep from rolling his eyes. 

Allison didn't look like she was buying it either. "That's your cover, yeah, but what's the real reason?"

"That _is_ the real reason." With what Sam judged to be a deliberate amount of obnoxiousness, Dean stretched out again, slamming his boots up beside Allison's hip with a pair of loud thuds. "We're just here visiting family. In a couple of weeks, we'll be out of your pretty hair." 

She didn't flinch. "The Stilinskis aren't hunters," Allison said firmly. Behind her, all three of her little goons craned their heads, obviously listening in. "Believe me, I'd know if they were."

Dean opened his mouth, probably to say something obnoxious, and Sam jumped in before they could get run out of yet _another_ town. "Claudia Campbell and our mom were cousins," he explained. "Our grandpa raised them before she ran off with Uncle Travis. We never really got to know them, and it's been a slow summer, so we thought we'd stop by. We don't have much family left. That's all it is."

It was only a moment, but Allison flinched, eyes going wide. The people at the other table weren't even trying not to listen; the body builder was hanging over the back of his chair, staring at Allison's back like he wanted to tackle her. Blondie had her lip caught between her teeth, and from the way the black guy was moving, there was either some kicking or some footsie happening under the table.

"Claudia... _Campbell_." The words came out low and clipped, with an edge Sam hadn't really heard since the last time they'd gotten arrested. She chewed over the name, eyes shuttered. "I wasn't aware of her maiden name."

" _Yep_." Dean should have won records for the most sarcastic smile in the world. It even beat out his previous record, when they'd been kidnapped by that asshole imp in Arizona. "So you can see our position. We didn't come here just to turn around and leave. This is family business. Not hunter business."

Allison pressed her lips together, then shook her head. "Is there a difference?" Keeping her hands on the table, she pushed upward, leaning forward to get into Dean's face. "Keep it clean. I don't want either of you schmucks playing around in my town. Telling your uncle about your... extensive trail of paperwork is the least of what I'll do if I catch either of you hunting in Beacon Hills. And believe me, I'll know if you do." Her eyes darted over to Sam. "You seem to be the sensible one. Keep him out of my hair."

With one last glare, she left, hips rolling in that way that came with having weapons hidden under tight clothes. As soon as she was out the door, her posse got up and followed, the curly-haired one trailing them out like a bodyguard. 

Everyone in the diner was giving them the stink-eye. _Everyone_. Even the little old lady whose sole job seemed to be sitting behind a counter and knitting. It was a little creepy, even for Sam. 

"Kids," Dean snorted, picking up his menu like a shield and slinking down to hide behind it. "No respect for their elders."

* * *

"I can't believe you just let them go," Stiles grumbled into the phone, slouching down the main street with his arm hooked in Scott's. They were browsing the little stalls that popped up along the sidewalk around March. It was one of those cool spring days that made it clear winter wasn't _that_ far gone, with heavy gray skies and a missing sun. The breeze was just brisk enough that having a warm werewolf shoulder to lean into was incredibly nice. 

The rest of the pack were keeping their heads down, most communication happening through phones so the Winchesters wouldn't see him with anyone incriminating. It had been the longest three days he'd had since winter finals had kept everyone too busy to play. "Allison, I _trusted you_ Derek, not so much, but you've always been the sensible one."

On the phone, Derek didn't say anything, but his silence had a tone. It was a very specific _if I were a normal person I would object to that_ silence. 

Allison, conference calling in, laughed. "What was I supposed to do? Shoot them in broad daylight?"

"Yes!" 

Leaning in so he could pretend he needed to make an effort to hear the conversation, Scott snickered. "I think they made a good call," the dirty little traitor put in. "Maybe they really are being honest. Do you really want to shoot your cousins on the off chance that they're lying?"

Stiles was pretty sure that another loud _yes_ would be the wrong answer. Scott got worried when Stiles was too blood-thirsty. (It got him in good with the lady portion of their pack, though, which was always a bonus.) "Your continuing morality worries me. Even Jackson thinks that it's too much of a coincidence, them showing up after the thing at Daisy's. _Jackson_." He wrinkled his nose and bent to take a look at some hand-crafted jewelry. In a pack of nine, there was always _someone's_ birthday around the corner, and this time it was Erica's. "What about earrings?" 

Derek snorted. "If you let inferior jewelry into the house, Lydia will kill you and not even bother hiding the body."

"... point accepted." Meeting the vendor's eyes, Stiles shrugged helplessly and moved on, forcibly dragging Scott along with him. Just down the road, a collection of brightly colored fabrics danced in the breeze of a passing car. "Maybe a nice scarf. Scarfs are good gifts, right? Unisex, even."

Judgey, judgey silence came from all sides. Even Scott was frowning, a little divot between his brows indicating that his endless faith in Stiles was risking the discovery of an end.

"Are we done talking business?" Allison finally asked. She at least had the grace to sound a little apologetic. "I wanted to get Lydia to look at the bestiary and see if there's anything we missed. Maybe flower monsters by another name." 

"If you _insist_." Stiles huddled in closer to Scott's side as a particularly chilly breeze tickled its way under his collar. They were getting close to the center of downtown, where the competition was thickest. People were gathered in a huge throng, their voices growing loud enough that Stiles was having trouble hearing Allison speak. "But if you keep shooting down my ideas, I'm going to make you come shopping with me for Erica's birthday."

"We'll talk about it next time you come home," Derek said, voice heavy with old grievance. "I still don't think separate gifts make sense. We should—" 

Scott slowed them down to nearly a stop, head cocked and eyebrows even more pinched. As Stiles watched, his nostrils flared, and his eyes glinted yellow. They darted around, his attention obviously getting caught by multiple conversations.

"—pool our resources, that's what a pack's for, yeah," Stiles cut him off hurriedly when he felt claws start to poke into his arm. "Yeah, let's talk about that, I've got to go, love you both bye!" Before anyone had room for questions, Stiles cut the call. "What've you got, Scotty?"

"I just..." Scott shook his head, shoulders hunching in. He shook his head sharply and yanked Stiles' arm, dragging him forward at a jog. The crowd complained, but allowed themselves to be shoved out of the way as easily as Stiles let himself be dragged, though somewhat more gracefully. The curb and three different—possibly imaginary—rocks tripped him up as they went, only Scott's hold on his arm keeping him upright.

"Slow down!" Stiles called, fighting to keep his balance against the unlikely evils of concrete and asphalt. An elderly man glared at him as he barely dodged an outstretched cane. "Scott, can you _please_ —"

The mob of people finished parting just as Scott let go of his arm, and Stiles' feet skidded out from under him. He rocketed backwards, flailing, coming down on a thick pile of snow. He blinked, staring up at the sky until Scott's face hid most of the view.

"I knew I smelled snow!" Flailing, Scott dropped to his knees at Stiles' side, the snow crunching under him. He ran his fingers through the crispy layer of white. "Mostly snow, anyway."

"Mostly snow?" Bracing himself, Stiles sat up. There were already children playing in it, snowballs bouncing around, snowmen being erected—and _erected_ over by Greenberg and her friends. The snow stopped right at the edge of the city square, like someone had put up a glass wall. 

_Or a magic one._ Stiles gathered up a ball, passing it from palm to palm, eying it. It _felt_ like snow. Sort of. The texture was a little off, and it wasn't quite as cold as Stiles would have expected it to be. Bits of it reflected back the thin sunlight in rainbows. Not really snow. Snowish, maybe. More was falling, dusting Scott's brown jacket with a thin layer of shining glitter. 

Stiles dusted off his hands, but it was too late. They'd already been glitter-fied. He pounded his palms against his thighs, to no avail. It smeared and rubbed around rather than coming off. "I'm not sure this is even _mostly_. What the hell is this stuff? Do you think—" 

A snowball caught him right on the side of the face. Sputtering, Stiles collapsed back into his snowbank. Glitter sparkled in his eyelashes, like something out of an anime. "That," he declared loudly, "was _cheating_!" 

Scott grinned and made a show of compacting another snowball. Just from handling the stuff, he was glitter up to the elbows. It was even under his nails, reminiscent of the last time they'd tried to get into the Jungle. "Only because you didn't think of it first."

Reaching out, Stiles carefully scooped up a handful of mostly-snow behind his back as he floundered upright. "But you've got the whole—reflexes and speed and stuff," he complained. His knees cracked as he got his feet under him, and his ass had already started to go numb from the cold. It made moving difficult, but that was just better camouflage. "What kind of best friend takes advantage of his werewolf _powers_!" 

On the last word, Stiles hurled himself forward, slamming directly into Scott's chest. He got a face full of glitter-snow, but Scott didn't have time to get away before Stiles had successfully shoved his own handful down Scott's shirt. Then they went down, rolling together in the crisp white fabulousness, laughing so hard Stiles' chest ached. 

In snow wars, there were no losers. Only glitter.

* * *

Two teenage boys sulked in the middle of the linoleum floor, heads down, hands shoved into their pockets. It wasn't anything special. Sam had seen kids like that before, had _been_ that kid before. Really, there was only one major difference between this and every other similar incident.

They were _covered_ in glitter. 

Sam covered his mouth to hide his smile as Stiles and his friend stood stock still, shining like human-shaped disco balls and dripping wet. There wasn't a single stretch of visible skin, clothing or hair that didn't have a suspicious twinkle. 

Dean didn't bother with the niceties. "What the hell happened to you two?" he snickered. "Get attacked by Tinkerbell?"

Their little cousin made a face that Sam recognized too well. It was all bruised teenage dignity and overinflated sense of adulthood. His jaw set and his shoulders drew back, like it would make him look bigger. Instead, it just made one particular piece of glitter on the tip of his nose shine. "There was some snow downtown," he explained stiffly, glaring at Dean. 

"Someone probably spilled some stuff in it," Scott added cheerfully. His entire head was matted with melted snow, making his floppy brown hair curl at the edges. Between the rosy cheeks, hair and glitter, he could have come out of any episode of Disney On Ice. "We didn't notice until too late."

"You expect me to believe that?" Uncle Travis finally looked up from the kitchen table, balancing his head in his hands. "It's sixty degrees out. There's no snow." 

Stiles' glare faded a little at the edges, but all he did was shrug, loose-limbed and easy. "Microclimate, dad. It's probably all over the news. We're going to go rinse this stuff off." He grabbed his friend's hand and yanked him out of the kitchen. Sam caught a glimpse of their laced fingers before they were around the door and headed loudly upstairs. The ceiling rattled with the force of careless footsteps, followed by a sharp thud as they—presumably—reached Stiles' room.

Uncle Travis shook his head and sank back in his chair, pulling his cup of coffee closer. "Snow. Can you believe that kid?" He shrugged a commiserating shoulder a Sam, like Sam was supposed to understand anything about being a parent. "They were probably poking around Daisy's. I can't keep Stiles out of crime scenes to save both of our hides."

"There _has_ been some weird weather lately," Sam felt like he had to say. From what he'd seen of Travis and Stiles' relationship, it was yards better than his own with his father. He hated to see the start of it crumbling right in front of him. "I've seen weirder things." 

Under the table, Dean's foot pressed down on Sam's, tapping to get his attention. "He seems like a good kid though. I'm surprised you've got trouble with him." Dean made a show of sipping his coffee, sagging back to make himself more comfortable. "Can't be all that bad."

Already-deep winkles folded up around Uncle Travis's eyes when he grimaced. "You wouldn't believe the messes he gets into. Get this." Wood scraped as he scooted forward, leaning over the table. "Couple years ago, we had a bad spate of animal attacks. Really bad. We're talking girls found in _pieces_ bad."

Off the top of his head, Sam could count three, maybe four cases in the last month with _bodies in pieces_ , but when Travis looked at him he raised his eyebrows and tried to look appropriately shocked. Dean let out a gasping noise that anyone with half of a sense of sarcasm should have spotted.

Either Travis had developed a Teenager Filter or he just didn't get sarcasm, because he only nodded. "Exactly. Never did find the thing that was doing it, but it was pretty scary. And _those two_ were out kicking around in the woods, looking for bodies and being idiots. That was just the start of it. For a while it was touch and go. Staying out late, getting into fights..." His face closed in on itself in a tight frown, shoulders hunching in. The memories were practically playing out in his eyes. "It's gotten better, lately, but... He's hiding something. Damned if I know what, though."

Sam glanced over at Dean in time to find his brother looking back at him. Bodies in the woods, wild animals, kids acting weird—and hunter family in town. It didn't take a genius to connect the dots and come up with a picture. "I'm sure he'll be fine," Sam tried to say reassuringly. It came out stiff, awkward. "He loves you."

Upstairs, muffled thumps and the sound of elderly hot water pipes pinging started to sound. Sighing, Travis shook his head and pushed to his feet. "I'd better go get the grill started. Last time we did this, Scott wanted to try. It's a miracle the boy didn't lose his eyebrows."

"I'll help," Dean said, slamming back his coffee and standing. "Sammy here can work on a salad," he kept on, ignoring the sharp glare Sam sent his way. "He likes salad. It's his thing."

Still glaring at Dean's uncaring back, Sam slowly got up and made his way to the refrigerator. "Yeah, I can do that." On glance, there was everything he'd need to put together a decent garden salad to go with the burgers and corn on the cob. Okay, maybe Dean's suggestion was actually a good one. Revenge was still going to happen. Messy revenge. 

Again, Travis seemed to miss the byplay, smiling at Sam and leading Dean toward the pantry where the charcoal and lighter fluid were kept. "I'd appreciate it. Stiles is big on salads, too. Health food kick."

Dean snorted. "Kids, right? Don't know how to appreciate a good chunk of meat when it's waved in their face." He held the door open while Travis dug around. "Hey, what sort of animal did you say was doing those attacks? It sounds like a monster."

Something deep in the closet scraped, and Travis reappeared with an oversized back of charcoal. "Not a monster," he said with a snort. "A freaking miracle in California. Forensics found _wolf_ hair on the bodies. Can you believe it?"

* * *

There was something up with Stiles. Dean was at least 95% sure of it. The other 5% had been a teenager, and remembered what it was like. There was _always_ something "up". He had enough of a passing familiarity with "normal" to know that it could be anything from an STD and a string of pregnant girlfriends to good old fashioned bullying. It didn't have to be supernatural.

And if the kid wasn't a Campbell by blood, it probably wouldn't have been. But their family tended to attract trouble.

Dean helped Uncle Travis put together the grill and let his mouth do the talking without his brain engaged. It was a trick he'd picked up somewhere along the line, probably from dealing with Sam, and it was handy when he needed to think. Wolf hair evidence and bodies torn apart sounded familiar. Too familiar. 

Argents settled in. Mysterious animal attacks. Kids keeping secrets after bumping around in dangerous woods. And Beacon Hills was already a hotbed of Weird Shit. Didn't have to be a genius to connect those dots. 

Sam came out, carrying a plate of the marinated steaks (marinated, proof that Uncle Travis really had been domesticated) and a giant bowl of salad to sit on the patio table. Dean said something about getting more lighter fluid and abandoned Uncle Travis to the grill, jerking his head at Sam. 

Three minutes later, Sam came out of the house while Dean was rummaging around in the Impala's trunk. He had to keep it on the up and up; broad daylight in the Sheriff's driveway was no place to show off his favorite toys. But what he was looking for was probably was on the upper level anyway. "What's up?" 

"How many wolves are there in California?" A jar stuffed in the back of the trunk, behind the first aid kit, shined when the light hit it. Dean grabbed it up, holding it up to be sure he had what he wanted.

"None." Sam crossed his arms, looking incredibly judgmental. "Wolves have been extinct in California for decades. Is that powdered silver?" 

"Yup," Dean said proudly. He pried the cork off and took out a pinch, dusting it over his palms. He didn't want to kill the kid in front of his dad, so a little would have to do. "I want you on holy water duty, in case it's not werewolves." 

The way Sam's face closed off could have written books about his opinions. Extremely judgmental books. "Werewolves, Dean? Really?" Judgey or not, it didn't stop Sam from catching the vial Dean tossed at him and pocketing it. 

"You heard the man." He grabbed some lighter fluid while he was in there. Then the trunk closed with a careful slam. "Something's up with his kid, and _something up_ in a town like this usually means the worst. Don't get me wrong, I'm hoping that if he's in our sort of mess, it's with that Argent girl and her crew of hunters, but let's make sure." She looked about the right age, and she was smoking hot. Best place for a kid like to be in a place like Beacon Hills was behind a hunter. Girl might not have looked dangerous, but her crew sure as hell had. 

Sam sighed, one of those loud, pointed sighs that said Dean was going to get it once they were alone. Dean always liked those sighs. It meant that he was winning. "Fine. I'll spike everyone's drink, and you play touchy feel-y. Wash your hands before you eat, though."

Dean rolled his eyes at Sam's back as he vanished into the kitchen. "Sure thing, _gramps_." 

Stiles and the McCall kid were in the living room, dripping wet and still faintly glittery. They had a selection of games spread out in front of them on the floor, and were in the middle of a complicated discussion that involved more half sentences and significant looks at the games than it did actual communication. 

Scott was making a face down at the offerings. "Why did we leave it at—"

"Because Erica would kill us and then find a way to teabag our corpses if we went grinding without her," Stiles said flatly, slapping his hand down on a game. "Why don't we—"

"But Der—"

"I _know_ , right?" 

Eyebrows went up in a moment of silence that, okay, even Dean could admit was kind of cute. He really hoped they didn't turn out to be furry. Murder was the bad way to end family reunions.

But cute or not, there couldn't have been a better opportunity. "Don't tell me you two are going to hide in here playing video games?" Reaching down as he passed, Dean clapped his hand on the back of both boys necks. There was still enough residue glitter on their skin already that the small smear of silver he left behind blended right in. "Come on, outside. You can play that stick game while the adults play with fire." 

"What are you, a hundred? It's not _that stick game_ ," Scott hauled himself to his feet gracefully, face set in a scowl. "It's _lacrosse_."

Under Dean's other hand Stiles went limp like he was going to have to be dragged. "We already did healthy outdoor activities today," he whined. "Can't we stay inside and rot our brains a little?" 

"Nope." Dean kept tugging until Stiles was on his feet too. Then he planted a hand between each of their shoulder blades and propelled them toward the backyard. "Seize the day, or something like that. Hup hup hup."

"We're going, we're going," Stiles whined, pulling away and dragging Scott with him. Dean stepped back a few feet to watch them go. Neither of them had a tell-tale rash where he'd applied the silver.

Well, that was one test down. The rest was up to Sam.

* * *

"I'm pretty sure they're trying to poison us," Scott whispered, leaning in close to Stiles as they pretended to work on cleaning their unfortunately not-euphemistic equipment. 

Stiles hummed, casting an eye toward the patio table. Sam had brought out drinks a second ago, some sort of pink lemonade mix in a pitcher. It didn't look threatening, but he hadn't survived Junior and Sophomore year by taking things as they appeared. "General or magical poisoning?" 

One of Scott's shoulders rolled in a shrug. "Dean had silver on his hands, I could smell it. And Sam's heartbeat spikes when he looks at the lemonade."

"Silver's nontoxic," was the first thing Stiles said, but it gave him a pause. It wasn't like there was some way Dean could have accidentally gotten silver on him. It wasn't powdered sugar in a donut factory. "You'd think big bad hunters would know silver doesn't work." 

"Maybe." Sunlight caught Scott's eyes as he glanced up at Stiles, turning them closer to werewolf gold than their usual warm brown. "They wouldn't try wolfsbane in the drinks, would they? On humans?" 

Netting twisted together under Stiles' fingers on autopilot. He'd looked up the effect of aconite poisoning in people on a whim once. It wasn't a pretty way to die. Not that there actually were a lot of pretty ways to die, but that one actually sucked extra hard. "Collateral damage." He turned his head, glancing over at the table. "Why don't you go get us some drinks and put that sniffer to work?" 

Scott rolled his eyes and bumped Stiles' shoulder, but he climbed to his feet and trudged over to where Sam was chatting with Stiles' dad. Stiles kept an eye on him as he made a big show of pouring two glasses randomly picked from the collection. Unfortunately, he was just as obvious about sniffing one of them before taking a sip. Sam and Dean shot each other a look that was one part suspicious and one part eye roll which, okay, Stiles really couldn't blame them. Werewolves were the opposite of subtle. He'd learned to accept that. 

While Scott was busy being the most obvious goober to ever goob, Stiles' phone buzzed in his pocket. Without taking his eye off the nerdy werewolf action, he dragged it out and flipped open the incoming text. It was from Derek.

Found something in the Preserve. Call when you can. Delete this ASAP.

Stiles snorted. "You romantic." But he deleted the message. It was probably safest that way anyway, in case one of the Winchesters got ahold of his phone. 

Then Scott was sitting down and shoving one of the glasses at Stiles with a hard expression. He took a drink of his own, pointedly glancing back at Dean—who was actually doing a worse job of not being suspicious than Scott, wow. 

"Taste it," Scott said, voice dark. "Tell me if it's weird to you."

"Sure, give the highly breakable human the questionable substance," Stiles muttered. He glanced over at the Winchesters to make sure they weren't looking before he took a sip as ordered. 

Sharp, slightly sweet, and with that freaky chemically bite that meant it came from a mix. No poison. Or at least, none that he could taste. Which meant whatever the Winchesters were up to was at least slightly less than immediately murderous. Was that reassuring? Stiles supposed it probably wasn't. Lots of people didn't want them dead _right that second_. "Just lemonade, dude."

Scott's shoulders hunched. "It tastes fizzy to me. Not carbonated, just..." His hands spread out on his thighs, the tips of his fingers looking just a little claw-like. "I asked Sam if he'd used club soda or something, and he said no. Just water."

The lemonade swirled up the edges of Stiles glass as he swished it. There'd definitely been a test, then. The question was, what sort of test, and did they pass? "We should ask Allison." 

"Allison?" Dean's voice over Stiles' shoulder nearly made him leap out of his skin. Lemonade splashed across the grass as Stiles fought to keep his balance, leaning against Scott automatically for support. Scott clung back, heart ratcheted loud enough that Stiles could feel it through his chest. 

Dean smirked and hooked his fingers in his belt loops, clearly satisfied with having spooked the shit out of them. Bastard-flavored bastard. "Who's Allison, your little girlfriend?" he asked, eyebrows raising tauntingly. "Aren't you a little young to date?"

Stiles and Scott glanced at each other; by the way Scott's fingers were curled in his shorts, he'd been just as surprised by Dean popping in as Stiles was. Not good. "She's kind of Scott's girlfriend, actually," Stiles lied for them, because Scott had too many fangs to do it for them. "Don't let her hear you call her little, though. She'll kick your ass."

"Wouldn't be the first one to try." The toe of Dean's boot nudged Stiles in the leg. "Come on, your dad's almost finished with the steaks. If you want to make sure he gets the lean cut, you're going to have to move fast."

"Traitor!" 

"We're on to you, old man!" Stiles yelled back, scrambling to his feet. The last bit of his lemonade spilled out, abandoned as Stiles went to protect his father from himself. Scott followed close behind, leaving his glass too.

* * *

Dean folded his hands over the steering wheel and resisted the urge to drop his head in complete and utter boredom. Stakeouts were awful. The third worst part of the job. "Did you miss—"

"No, Dean, I didn't miss that Stiles' best friend is probably dating a hunter," Sam sighed. They'd been talking in circles around each other since they'd left after dinner and had circled around to park at the corner. "And there's something fishy going on. But shouldn't we be focusing on the case we actually came here for?" 

"How do you know it's not related?" A bit of dust on his car's dash caught Dean's eye. He reached through the steering wheel to wipe it away. "They were covered in glitter just like the flower shop." 

"And didn't have any reaction to the holy water or the silver." The seat creaked as Sam shifted forward to grab one of his stupid granola things from the bag of snacks—she'd never been made for a longshanks, even if it was one who was practically a herbivore. "I think that we should lay off the kid."

Sam's face was serious. Actually serious. When did Sam turn soft— okay, dumb question, Dean retracted the thoughts that led up to it. "Any reason _why_ you want to let our adorable baby cousin maybe mix it up with the supernatural unsupervised?" he asked instead.

"Just because you feel guilty about—"

Before Sam could dig his hole deeper, Dean slashed a hand through the air to cut him off. "Okay, hold it right there," he said, one finger lifted in what he would always think of as a Dad Pose. "This isn't about that. This is about—"

" _Family_ ," Sam finished for him and _ouch_ , Dean hated it when Sam hit the money that hard. "It's about family. And I get it, but you've got to give the kid some space. If he's not dangerous and not _in_ danger, we should let it go because getting mixed up with us too close _will_ put him in danger." 

The steering wheel wasn't actually fun to hold onto when the Impala wasn't moving, but it gave Dean something to strangle as he stared off at the base of a fire hydrant. There were too many thoughts in his head, and he kind of hated it. He was a man of action, not... squishy, feelings things. 

One of Sam's hands reached over to cover his knee, squeezing. "Hey, I didn't—"

"No, you're right." Slumping back, Dean let go of the steering wheel, trading it for Sam's hand. Maybe he could do a little bit of feelings. Sometimes. Headlights flashed along the street, illuminating Sam's face and _ugh_ , Dean actually wanted to kiss him. Not just for sex, just to kiss him. He'd never get used to that part. "I'll give the kid some air, and we'll get back to the florist shop thing."

The car with the headlights stopped at the corner before taking a right turn onto the county road. It rattled like a horse-and-buggy, and was an unmistakable, ugly powder blue CJ-5 with two occupants. 

Dean grinned and turned the ignition. "Right after this." 

Predictably, Sam groaned, but for once he stopped arguing, so Dean could roll with that. 

If the kid was trying to be sneaky, he was terrible at it. He took a couple of random turns, but mostly made straight for the woods. Dean didn't have any trouble hanging back out of sight and still following. It was actually kind of sad. He hoped, for Stiles' sake, that he wasn't up in any supernatural business, because the kid was really just asking to die if he was. 

The Jeep pulled off the road into the Preserve's visitor parking lot and actually parked _right under a light_. Dean kept driving past, then killed the lights and made a U-turn to park in one of the lookout spots just off the side of the road. He and Sam got out, tucking their handguns out of sight before making their way back to where Scott and Stiles were lounging on the hood of the Jeep, asking for something to come by and eat them. The woods offered plenty of protection from line of sight and, after a few furious gestured conversations with Sam, they circled around to wait downwind. Just in case. 

They didn't have to wait for long. A tiny, girly Prius pulled in after a few minutes, parking nose to nose with the Jeep. An equally tiny redhead in a miniskirt got out, a massive picnic basket on one arm and her hand on her hip. She said something that Dean couldn't hear, but it made Stiles laugh and drag her up into a kiss. 

"Wow," Sam deadpanned, giving Dean the most unimpressed look he'd seen from Sam in probably a week. "So dangerous. I bet that girl's another succubus or something. Probably sucking out their souls out through their dicks right now. Can we go?"

Dean made a _shut up_ gesture at him. Like he was leaving just when things were getting good, because the girl was kissing _Scott_ now, and Stiles was definitely into that. When did teenage relationships get that good? _His_ teenage relationships weren't that good. 

After a few more rounds of kisses, the girl planted herself on the bumper of her car, bracing her high-heeled feet on the Jeep. No one seemed interested in moving at all, even when she crossed her legs to flash even more thigh.

More waiting, then. _Yippee._

He was starting to seriously consider napping against Sam's shoulder when a sleek black Camaro showed up with—yep, the Argent girl and one of her people, the black guy. More kisses went around, and if nothing else, there was probably some kind of high school orgy ring going on here that just happened to intersect with hunters. Did kids know about condoms and shit in California? Dean was pretty sure they did. Probably.

"I can hear you thinking," Sam hissed, elbowing his ribs. "They're _kids_. Stop it."

"I wasn't—" Dean started to say, but then there were red eyes in the distance and he'd started reaching for his gun before he realized that it was another one of the goons from the diner. One of the big guys, and he had a _face_ on. 

_Werewolves._ Dean fucking knew it.

Big Guy got in on the same orgy of affection that everyone else had, even though he had at least five years on them all. No one got left out. Not even the Argent girl, who actually took the time to climb him like a tree and kiss him until the face went away. Then the whole group vanished off into the woods carting the picnic basket with them.

Dean slapped Sam's ass to shove him forward. "Yeah, not dangerous at all."

* * *

As it turned out, what Derek had found was a circle of mushrooms. 

Stiles would have been unimpressed, if the mushrooms weren't three feet tall and didn't glitter in the moonlight like cheap Christmas ornaments. That was a pretty good sign that something weird was up. It said something sad about life in Beacon Hills that glitter and fungus were suspicious. He tried not to think about it. 

"Whatever you do, don't cross the circle," Lydia warned, spreading out the blanket she'd brought. In the basket there was a pile of food and plates waiting to be set out, along with what looked like pillar candles. What the hell. "Don't spook it, and don't accept anything it offers."

Allison had her legs wrapped around Boyd's neck, using him to hold her up as she wired a camera to the nearest tree. Boyd had the receiver, and was giving her instructions on the angle. Derek had a box of salt and was walking a giant circle, barely in sight. If Stiles hadn't had experience watching Derek creep around in dark locations, he might not have seen him at all. 

Scott looked just as overwhelmed as Stiles felt. "I'm sensing a plan here. At least, I hope I'm sensing one."

"We talked it over while you two were busy," Boyd said, taking a little step to the side so Allison could anchor the camera better. "Deaton says that mushroom circles like that are usually caused by fairies, fae like good food, so we'll invite it to eat with us."

"As the hosts, that gives us some control. They're very big on manners." Lydia smoothed her hand over the blanket, then started setting out plates. They were actual ceramic, the silverware wasn't plastic, and the candles had fancy little holders that used mirrors to magnify the light. "We'll find out why it's here, and try to convince it to leave."

Allison patted Boyd's shoulder to be lifted down. "And if it won't leave, the salt will trap it," she finished with a proud smirk. "Derek will be watching on the laptop to see if he needs to close the ring."

"And we want to discuss this right in front of the mushrooms because...?" Gesturing toward said mushrooms, Scott grimaced. "How do we know it can't hear us?"

Nodding, Stiles threw his arm around Scott in solidarity, and got a hip bump in return. "Or that it'll even come?"

The face Lydia made at them should have, by rights, signaled their incoming deaths. She held up a carving knife like a pointer. It was a big knife. "Do you _see_ a sparkly being from another dimension inside the mushrooms? _No_. And trust me. It will come." 

There was a shuffle and suddenly Stiles found himself playing human shield for Scott, who'd ducked behind him. Dirty traitor. He held up his hands in surrender, plastering on his best, most trusting expression. "Just wondering." 

Lydia's hold on the knife handle shifted, and for a second she looked _stabby_. Then she set it down gently by the... roast something or other. "Good. So come eat. It won't show up to be invited in until there's something to be invited to."

Behind Stiles, Scott risked poking his head around. "We kind of already ate—"

" _Sit down_."

Immediately, the two of them scrambled for a corner of the blanket farthest from Lydia. Stiles won that round, forcing Scott to sit a whole foot and a half closer by way of shameless trickery and fast footwork. Over in what was probably the best spot, Lydia folded her hands and preened. She never seemed to get tired of being able to order around creatures of legend and Stiles with impunity.

"It's not that bad." Boyd took the spot next to Lydia and started filling his plate with crackers, cheese and a kind of spread that Stiles suspected was hummus. "If it doesn't work out, then we just wasted time."

Stiles frowned down at his empty plate. "I guess." It didn't seem right, though, having a freaking picnic. The Winchesters were up to _something_. They should have been out tailing them, trying to find their angle. Fairies seemed tame next to strange hunters who spiked lemonade. Okay, so he didn't know what they'd spiked it with, because it had been ineffective, but still. _Spiked lemonade_. 

"Don't worry so much." Allison took Stiles' non-Scott side, nudging him with her knee. She picked up his empty plate and exchanged it for one with a giant chocolate chip cookie. "We'll get through this, and they'll go off to stab ghosts somewhere else. Your dad will be fine."

He hated it when the pack was perceptive. "But what if—"

A tinkle of bells cut him off, and a soft blue glow filled the clearing. In the corner of his eye, Stiles saw something move in the mushroom circle. Lydia sucked in air between her teeth, and Scott's eyes went wide. 

"Act casual," Boyd ordered, keeping his head down and focusing on his hummus. "Don't stare at it." 

The others turned back to what they were doing, though the conversation had ground to a halt and didn't seem like it was going to start up again. 

Stiles did his best. He really did. He even took a bite of his cookie, and it was a damned good cookie. But he couldn't manage to keep himself from stealing a glance off to the side. 

Inside the circle, a tiny, pudgy shape was hiding behind one of the mushrooms. Its—her?—dark hair was piled up in a circle of glittering flowers and frosted with snowflakes— _Evidence!_ the part of Stiles that would forever be a Sheriff's son crowed—and a long white smock-like thing.

"Do they always look like that," Scott whispered. His eyes glinted gold in the dark, probably using his wolfy senses to get a better look. "Like a little kid?"

Allison took a drink from a water bottle and shook her head. "Only when they are little kids." 

_Oh shit_. Stiles cast a hard look at Lydia's set up, with real plates and candles and _hummus_ and he knew that it wasn't going to work. "Where are the rest of the cookies?" 

"What?" Allison's head came up, confusion twisting her face into a frown. 

"Give me another cookie!" Stiles hissed, holding out his hand urgently. In the circle, the fairy kid was bouncing from mushroom to mushroom like a nervous bird. "Just trust me, okay. I need a cookie. Where are they?"

Reaching directly over the food—probably a faux pas, if Lydia's scandalized expression was anything to go by—Boyd shoved a tupperware thing of homemade cookies at Stiles. He grabbed the one on the top and turned to his best bro and co-conspirator. "Scotty, you're my backup. Kids love you. Try to keep me from getting turned into something fluffy or slimy, okay?"

Because Scott was the best, he just nodded, even if he did look like he was pretty sure Stiles would definitely need rescuing soon. 

Armed with a cookie, Stiles rose to his feet and approached the mushrooms. The kid—he'd given up on figuring out if the fairy even _had_ a sex, Lydia hadn't even said if fairies in general did and for all he knew they reproduced by flowers or something—scrambled back, huge green eyes wide and actually shining. _Shining_. 

About halfway there, Stiles stopped and crouched down. "Hey," he said softly, holding out the cookie in offering. "You want this?"

The kid looked from him, to the cookie, then back to him, and made a face. Serious contemplation was going on, but it eventually resolved into a nod and an outstretched hand.

"Nuh-uh," Stiles shook his head. "You have to come here for it." Twitching his fingers, he made the cookie do a little spin on his palm. His mom had taught him that, back when he was little. Learning that trick had kept him occupied and quiet for a solid hour. Back then an hour of quiet had been a miracle his parents regularly prayed for. Loudly. 

His mom's trick worked its magic on fairies, too. The kid's eyes went huge and hungry. One little bare foot toed the ground before the fairy took a step out from behind the cover of the mushroom, and then another. Behind him, Stiles could actually feel Lydia's critical face, but it didn't matter because in a couple of minutes he had an armful of contented fairy munchkin who was happily spreading crumbs all over his formerly clean shirt. 

Up close, the fairy's skin wasn't pale so much as iridescent, like the glitter in the snow and at the flower shop, and there was something freaky about their eyes, too. The pupils weren't really round so much as layered membranes, so the only actually black part was a tiny pinprick in the center with rings of slowly lightning color around it until it turned into actual iris. If he had to estimate by human standards, Stiles would have guessed two, maybe three years old, but who the hell knew how fairies aged. 

"Okay, so we have our culprit," Stiles said, scooping up the baby against him as he stood. "Now what?" 

He should have known better than to say anything that could have sounded like a cue, because in his life, it _was_ a cue. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, a wolf howled—Derek, which, okay, he'd completely forgotten about Derek and _fuck he'd forgotten about Derek_. 

And then there was a gunshot. A _fucking gunshot_ , and then another howl and _shit shit shit_.

The baby, who'd been nearly limp against him, sat up suddenly and let out a banshee wail to rival Lydia's best. Stiles leaned away, trying to get his ears as possible, but the fairy just screeched again and lunged out of his arms. Blue light filled the clearing, puddling out like water on the ground. Everywhere it touched shined with more freaking glitter and Stiles was never, ever going to go into a craft store again.

"Don't let it get away!" someone yelled through the ringing in Stiles' ears. He tried to leap for the fairy, but it dodged and all he got was a face full of... cookie crumbs? Boyd, Scott and Allison ran past, chasing the screaming, iridescent blur of the fairy through the woods toward the parking lot.

Stiles picked himself up off the ground and verified that, yes, the ground he'd landed on was probably oatmeal-raisin. The nearest rock looked more like a giant sprinkle than anything else. And the trees, while still tree-shaped, were sporting what looked to be chocolate chips. In fact, as far as Stiles could see in the dim lighting, the entire clearing had been turned into something from Willy Wonka. 

"Come on." Lydia grabbed Stiles by the back of the neck, nails digging in as she hauled him to his feet. The basket and blanket were folded over her other arm. They'd both visibly changed, even in the low light, and Lydia's skirt had started to look kind of... sticky. 

"Uhhh..." Stiles blinked at her, trying to force his brain back on the path of imminent danger. Even though danger had actually run out of sight. And Lydia was _right there_ , smelling kind of like caramel with her clothes sticking to her in new and fascinating ways. "Did that just...?"

"Change everything not strictly alive to candy?" Reaching over, she snapped off one of his buttons and popped it in her mouth. "Yes. It did."

"Everything?" He swallowed, thinking of the many, many layers of Lydia's clothing. And Allison had been in tights, hadn't she? 

" _Everything_." Lydia gave him an arch look, then shoved the basket at him. "Which we can all explore later. Right now, we should probably catch up to the others." 

Stiles followed obediently; experience was a harsh mistress, and so was Lydia Martin. He didn't even try to keep his eyes off the way her miniskirt clung to her ass. It didn't look like a fruit roll-up (which the blanket had definitely become), but he wasn't sure what else it could be. Maybe the same thing as his jeans, which definitely still felt like fabric, but stiffer, and given to crumble at the edges. 

The entire forest was similar. It looked mostly right, as long as he didn't look too hard. Then the details started popping out—rocks that were slightly translucent, sticks that were more than slightly chocolate, patches of dirt that smelled like cinnamon.

When they got to the parking lot, officially nothing made sense. The overhead lamps had gone dark—presumably because they'd turned into gumdrops or something something. The pack, from what Stiles could make out, had cornered the fairy against one of the cars. It was still crying, high-pitched and wordless. Some of the werewolves were growling, yellow eyes visible all the way across the parking lot. 

"Change my car back _now_!" Derek shouted over the noise. He had a pair of unconscious bodies over his shoulder. That was comfortably familiar, at least. 

Scott made a plea for everyone to just _calm down_. Predictably, no one was listening. 

"They're not helping, are they?" Stiles asked Lydia.

"Do they ever?" she sighed. "Maybe we should—"

The fairy's screeching reached new pitches, a range that rocked through Stiles' skull and stabbed right at the core of his brain. He dropped the basket, slamming his hands over his ears. Everyone but Lydia did the same, some of the wolves even scrambling back away from the source of the sound. Stiles' vision blurred, and something _popped_. 

Stiles opened his eyes in time to nearly be bowled over, first by the fairy, then by Scott. He wobbled to the side, twisting away as Scott dashed past, claws and sideburns out, managing to scoop up the fairy just before it hit the edge of the woods again.

It opened its mouth to let out another shriek, but Scott cupped a hand over it. "Hey, no, it's okay," he murmured. His face melted back into humanity. "No one's going to hurt you." 

In his arms, the fairy looked doubtful, but it closed its mouth. It sniffled and hid his face in Scott's shirt, apparently having decided that he was the least scary option.

Rubbing his head, Stiles looked around. Glitter had exploded from everywhere, all at once, in a giant pile of art class vomit right in the center of the parking lot where the cars had been. _Had_ being the operative tense, seeing as there was no sign of them. Stiles' dad— _shit double shit_ —was halfheartedly holding Derek at gunpoint. Lydia, Allison and Boyd had taken the option of _Huddle At a Distance_ and were watching the shitstorm brewing. By the look of things, Lydia was about to kick someone's ass at the loss of her car. 

"Are you going to keep pointing that at me?" Derek asked tiredly, not bothering to go back to human-face. He shrugged, jostling the bodies. It was dark, but Stiles was pretty sure they were the Winchesters. It was the cherry on the shit sundae. 

"Probably," Stiles' dad said casually. "At least until someone tells me what the fu—" He paused, looking over at the probably-child nestled against Scott's chest. "What the heck you are. Vampire? Demon? Klingon?" 

"Werewolf." Hooking an arm around Scott, Stiles dragged him over into the pending disaster. "He's a werewolf, Scott's a werewolf, there's a lot of werewolves, and I promise I'll explain everything once we figure out how to get out of here." 

Scott smiled awkwardly and waved a clawed hand. He replaced it immediately when the fairy started whimpering. "Hi, Mr. Stilinski."

There was a long pause, then Stiles' dad sighed and holstered his gun. He, Derek and the Winchesters seemed to have escaped the candy crush, something Stiles was a little jealous of. His jeans were starting to get sticky in bad places. "I knew something was up, or I wouldn't have followed these two clowns, but... You never do anything the easy way, do you?" his dad asked, a little plaintively. "You couldn't have been into smoking pot?

Stiles tried not to take that to heart. "Sorry, no drugs, just werewolves." 

Over in what Stiles normally would have considered the Calm and Rational group, Lydia had worked herself up to a frothing bubble. "I don't care if insurance will consider it a theft!" she yelled, stomping one exquisitely-clad foot. "My mother is going to kill me if I've lost that car!"

"But I'm right here?" a soft voice said, somewhere behind Stiles, near the center of the glitter pile. 

Everyone froze. A smidgen of suspicion tickled the back of Stiles' brain. He ignored it, and Scott's desperate smacking at his shoulder as he stared, wide-eyed and jaw hanging. If Stiles didn't look, it wouldn't be true. Ignorance was his only defense. That was the way the world worked, damn it. 

"Dean? Sammy?" someone else yelled, pitch rising in outrage. Her accent was thick with northeastern slurs on the vowels, which echoed nicely as she kept on. "What the hell are you doing with my boys, you fucking furball? You drop them right now or I'll run your ass over, so help me!"

Yet another voice, quieter but far from delicate said, "Derek? What's going on?" By the way Derek's face smoothed out into pained humanity, it wasn't hard to guess which one _that_ was. 

Rather than look, Stiles closed his eyes. "Scott, please tell me that the cars weren't turned into people. Lie to me." 

"Stiles, the cars were definitely not turned into people," Scott said, but his heart wasn't in it. "Especially not naked people with a lot of guns? Where did the guns come from?"

A hand rubbed the top of Stiles' head. He leaned into it, finding a shoulder placed just right to hide his face in. By the aftershave and the lack of food-based clothing, it was his father. "Welcome to werewolves, Dad." 

"Thanks. I think."

* * *

Sam wished being tied up back to back with Dean in the kitchen of a supernatural being who wanted to kill them was a new experience. His head ached from being knocked out by a werewolf, but that wasn't too bad. He'd gotten worse before. 

At least this time he was almost positive that death wasn't actually on the table. A lot of people just wished it were. He couldn't even blame them after the whole _shots fired_ thing. 

The cars—five of them, all women, because of course—had been bundled off out of sight. Every now and then, the sound of someone yelling rocked the house. The Impala hadn't been happy to have them taken prisoner, and it taken the Sheriff's cruiser and the Camaro to drag her off to a bedroom, while the Jeep— _Call me CJ_ —had taken the little Prius in hand. Probably literally, by the way the Jeep's hand had been wandering. 

Their _lives_. 

"Let me get this straight," Travis was saying, in the tired tones of someone who was past the point of caring about reality and willing to accept just about anything. He held his mug of cocoa close to his chest, like it could safeguard him from the truth. "This is a fairy, and the reason why a piece of the woods is now made of cookies and a bunch of cars are upstairs painting their toenails. They're hunters. Allison is a hunter too, but on your side. And... Raise your hand if you're a werewolf."

Obediently, a series of hands went up. Stiles' didn't, which Sam probably shouldn't have felt smug about. His buddy Scott _did_ raise his hand, though, which probably had Dean smirking like he'd won something.

Travis counted, then sighed. "Anyone else?" 

"Jackson and Erica," the redhead—who was named Lydia, and probably human, or at least not a werewolf—offered. "Isaac, too. He's watching them."

"We didn't think letting them near a species known to cast hundred year curses when insulted was a good idea," the alpha said. No one had mentioned his name yet. He was definitely the alpha, though. Red eyes usually trumped yellow in other monsters, at least. 

Travis considered that, then conceded the point with a nod. "So... what do we do now?"

Sam twisted in his chair until his arms started to strain at the shoulder joint. "Find her mother?"

Lydia gave him a scathing look. Sam had met demons with less ability to glare. He was pretty sure that if she'd been able, he would have been lit on fire. "I think that's obvious," she said through a razor-sharp smile. " _How_ is the question." 

"We can help!" Wood cracked against ceramic as Dean hopped his chair around. It yanked on Sam's arms, where they were tied making him wobble back a second until he could scoot to adjust to the new position. It was still impossible to see Dean's face, but Sam could _hear_ the smarm. "We've handled fairies before. We know what we're doing." 

"And we don't care." The black guy, Boyd, actually picked _both_ of their chairs up by the back and carried them to the far side of the room. It was impressive, but would have been moreso if he didn't have a slight whipped cream mustache from his cocoa. "Be quiet now. The adults are talking."

"You two couldn't even spot werewolves when it was handed to you. Silver dust!" Stiles added in, bopping the baby fairy on the forehead. She giggled, and a spray of glitter went everywhere, making him reel back, snorting it from his nose. 

Allison made a face, though. "There are some species of werewolves that actually are allergic to silver. They're more of the cursed cannibal kind, though. Rare, too."

"Do any of them look like cursed cannibals?" Stiles asked, trying to wipe glitter off his face and mostly just smearing it around. "Other than Sir Broods-A-Lot over there."

Twisting his hand in the tight confines of the rope, Sam pinched Dean before he had a chance to open his mouth again. Dean jumped, and Sam leapt in before they really were up a creek without a paddle. "Dean kind of has a point, though. We've seen fairies before, and we have contacts. We can help."

The Big Guy turned around in his seat, straddling the back of it. "How do we know you won't turn on us?" he demanded. There was just a hint of a growl in his voice, but Sam had a feeling that he was in absolute control. "You two have a reputation, and we've lost people by trusting hunters before." 

"You mean my car's not enough?" Dean demanded, sounding close to honest outrage. "You have my _baby_." 

Boyd rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that's not enough." 

Sam twisted his head around. 

Dean looked at him, then at the alpha, and jerked his head.

Sam frowned.

Dean's eyebrows arched. 

Sam rolled his eyes pointedly.

"Do we do that?" Scott stage-whispered to Stiles.

"All the time," Travis sighed, rubbing his eyebrows. "You two want to share with the rest of the class?"

Dean made one more face, but Sam ignored it and turned back around. "Hold one of us as a hostage—"

"We are not—

Sam ignored Dean. "The other can make a couple calls, look some things up. Any funny business, and you've still got one of us to hold over the other one." He nodded his head toward the alpha. "You know our reputation, you know we won't leave each other behind."

"And we also know what you'd do for each other." Allison frowned, flipping a perfectly balanced hunting knife thoughtfully. Somewhere on her were at least three other knives. Sam knew because she'd told him while she was tying him up.

"I think we should do it," Scott said suddenly, looking up from where the fairy had literally stolen his nose. It was sitting on the high chair tray next to a handful of cheerios; he hadn't seemed to notice it was missing yet. "Let the smart one go for now."

Dean's shoulders rolled back, bumping Sam's as he straightened in his chair. "Don't worry, Sammy, I won't leave you behind."

"I meant Sam, actually." 

"Hey!"

Casually, Scott grabbed his nose and stuck it back on his face, giving it a little wiggle to seat it right. It was bright with glitter, and a little more sprayed out when he breathed. "I trust him. I don't trust you. What do you think, Derek?" 

The entire pack turned their heads at once in creepy unison, even the humans. Travis's eyebrows went up, and Sam could see the wheels turning in his cop's brain. Whatever conclusion he came to, he kept it to himself, instead lacing his fingers to watch the alpha deliberate. 

It didn't take Derek long to nod. "I want at least one wolf and one human on him at all times. Calls happen on speaker or they don't happen. And someone go get the others. We need everyone for this." 

The closest wolf—Boyd—immediately sliced through the ropes holding Sam like they were string cheese. Sam rubbed his wrists to get some of the circulation back. Professional job at the knots or no, it wasn't a comfortable way to sit. "What are you going to do with my brother?" he asked, looking back at Dean. 

"No, Sammy, don't worry about me." Finally freed from being tied back to back, Dean hopped his chair around to face the table. "Go check on Baby. She's probably terrified."

The words _it's just a car_ were heavy on Sam's lips, but he managed to swallow them back. It would never be just a car to Dean. "All right. I'll check on the Impala." 

"Come on, I'll show you." Lydia finished her cocoa and unfolded herself from the table with a graceful twist of her body. "Boyd, you're on guard duty with me."

Sam let them put him in the middle, Lydia leading the way out of the kitchen while Boyd brought up the rear. "I'm not going anywhere while you have my brother." 

"Then it won't matter if we keep an eye on you, will it?" Boyd asked, just a shade too lightly. When Sam glanced back, his eyes had gone werewolf gold. He made a face and looked ahead again.

The house was warm and homey for what was essentially a den of monsters. Someone had put up some art prints, and there were even a few family pictures on the fireplace mantle. They edged around a sunken den filled with overstuffed, slightly battered furniture, a television the size of a small non-human car, and three different game consoles that he could see. More pictures lined the staircase, mostly of the kids and their alpha, but there were a few older ones with a collection of strangers, none of them looking directly at the camera. 

At the top of the stairs, the last picture caught Sam's eye, making him stumble to a stop. "Has this happened before?" he asked. "With the cars?"

"No?" Lydia scoffed and rose up on her toes. "Why do you— _oh_." 

The picture was on standard printer paper, probably from a copy store, since it didn't have any of the gloss of a normal photo. In it, the werewolf alpha was posed with a dark-haired woman in a leather jacket. She was shorter than him, but the way they'd arranged themselves let her wrap her arms around his shoulders and rest her chin on his head. 

She was also a dead ringer for the Camaro. 

Boyd's elbow bumped Sam's. Not sharply, just enough to get his attention. "Laura," he said softly, like there was any chance it wouldn't be overheard in a house full of werewolves. "Derek's sister." 

"And the car just _happens_ to look just like her?" It wasn't the weirdest thing Sam had ever heard, but he also hadn't had the most normal of lives.

A floorboard squeaked. "Laura was my first driver." The Camaro leaned against the doorway of one of the bedrooms, arms folded under her breasts, jaw set stubbornly. "She's gone now. People don't get rebuilt all the time. Not even werewolves."

The other four cars peeked around her, watching them nervously. Someone had given them all boxers and t-shirts to wear, but none of them looked really happy about it. The Prius especially looked out of place, her coiffed blue-gray curls more suited to an elderly librarian than a four-foot nothing, Japanese teenager. 

"Sammy?" The Impala was a tall, slender black woman with a streak of gray that was probably her chrome and laugh lines around her eyes. "Where's Dean? Is he okay?" 

"Ah..." Sam glanced over at Lydia and Boyd, but neither of them would meet his eyes. Some help. "He's downstairs. We're going to work on getting this fixed."

"Oh." The Impala bit her lip—there was a little scar there, a slightly lighter pucker that reminded Sam of the dent in the car's front bumper. They hadn't taken time to get it fixed, though Dean kept complaining about it. "I want to see him."

Immediately the Impala had the Camaro at one side while the Jeep wrapped her arm around the Impala's shoulder. 

"Let's not go bug Dean," the Jeep said, a shade too quickly. She was late twenties, early thirties at the youngest, but bounced on the balls of her feet like a toddler with a caffeine high. When she did, it swung her hair around to show the bright blue body under the black top—essentially, the same color she'd been on wheels. "He's probably hard at work. You don't want to make him worry about you, do you?"

"You don't see me going down to hug Derek, and trust me, he needs hugs," the Camaro added, sliding her arm around the Impala's waist. Her hand never reappeared on the other side. "We'll see them eventually. Come on, let's go enjoy being human while we can."

The Impala frowned, but let herself be dragged away with only one last worried look. Sam tried to convince himself that he _didn't_ see the Camaro's hand on her ass. There were some things he just wasn't equipped to deal with. 

"I'd just like to know what the hell's going on," the Cruiser grumbled, stepping out of the way of the other three. She was younger too, maybe an early twenties Japanese woman, but she was a cop from her short cropped brownish hair to the way she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her borrowed boxers. "I'm a 4Runner. I was built for off-roading, not for this werewolf shit."

" _You_ weren't? You've got a reinforced engine and a whole fleet of mechanics!" the Prius demanded, huddling in on herself, her tiny face twisted with on-coming tears. "I'm a luxury model! I'm a thousand miles past my oil change and Lydia hasn't noticed because she's always busy with _werewolves_ in my back seat." The glare she turned on Lydia could have melted paint.

Lydia grabbed Sam's elbow, nails digging in. Her elbow slammed into his stomach, shoving him a step down the stairs. Boyd had already started backing up. "I promise I'll call Gary and we'll make an appointment," she promised, voice low and soothing. "How about a wash and detailing, too? You like those."

"At the one one Main, right?" the Prius asked, sniffling. "They have nice wax."

"Right after your oil change," Lydia agreed, nodding. "I'll leave Gary a message right now, while Sam and Boyd work on changing you back."

The Prius sniffled again, but didn't stop them from backing away. Once they got to the midway point, Lydia turned and all but shoved Sam out of her way. She didn't stop when she hit the bottom of the stairs, just took a sharp left and kept going. The alpha's word, apparently, was only so much law.

"Are you going to tell your brother that his car's a lesbian?" Boyd asked, leading the way down the steps. 

"Are you going to tell your alpha that his sister's car is seducing ours?" Sam shot back, one eyebrow raised.

"Eventually," Boyd turned and grinned at the bottom of the stairs. "But first, you've got calls to make."

* * *

Stiles held Dean's head sandwiched between his arm and his ribs, forearm locked under his jaw as Erica drew a big red smiley face with one of her less favored lipsticks. It wasn't easy. Dean thrashed the whole time, trying to bite and kick and, once, headbutt his way to freedom. He'd been doing it ever since the hair clips had come out three hours before, and hadn't really shown any signs of stopping. Stiles had to give him points for perseverance.

They'd gone through pots and pans, macaroni jewelry and some of the Christmas ornaments Lydia had declared too tacky for any household she was part of. It seemed to keep the fairy too gleeful to do much damage, which was all Stiles cared about, even if they were going to be finding glitter for the next sixty years.

It wasn't as bad as the weapons that had been in the Impala's trunk, though. Those were _never_ going to recover from being doused in glitter. He hope he wasn't around when the Winchesters found out. That shit wasn't going to be pretty. Sparkly, but not pretty.

Across the room, Scott held the baby against his hip for a good view of the action. It—a necessary emergency dishtowel-diaper had verified that they had no idea _what_ was going on sex-wise other than that it wasn't human—squealed and clapped its hands, sending out a new spray of glitter. Stiles covered his eyes against the shining flurries. 

When he'd opened them again, his head felt weirdly heavy. Dean's hair had turned into long, softly waving locks that trailed over his back and shoulders. Scott snorted a laugh, turning his head to try and hide it behind his new long, trailing curls. Erica whistled and clapped her hands lazily. Her hair had gotten some length, too, but the difference wasn't as noticeable. "Looking good, boys."

"You're just jealous." He let go of Dean's head to feel around. A bit of groping confirmed that, yes, his hair was pretty much the same as Dean's. Less curly, but still ridiculously long. When he tugged on it, it felt real enough. Definitely it was attached to his scalp at least. "Hey, you think this'll last long enough to donate? What do you think, big cos, chop some off for charity?"

Dean actually growled and tried to lunge forward, knocking the chair legs against the floor. His curls bounced. It was kind of adorable, in a homicidal sort of way. "I swear to God if you little punks don't stop right this second I'll—"

"You'll what?" Stiles' dad poked his head into the kitchen from the den where he'd been on Monitor Sam duty. His eyes skimmed over Dean, and settled on Stiles. The smile on his face froze over, locking his face into an expression of old pain that Stiles had seen way too often. "New look?"

Stiles' fingers twitched to reach for the buzz cutters. He ran his hands over his new hair nervously, twisting it back from his face. "You know us kids and our wacky trends." 

"Any luck?" Scott, bless him, distracted Stiles' dad by shoving the baby at him. She said something in a language that definitely wasn't English and reached up to poke his cheek, leaving behind a smear of glitter.

He smiled and jiggled her higher on his hip. "A lot, actually. I was just coming in here to get some things."

"Summoning fairies is easy when you know who to call." Sam pushed his way past Stiles' dad. His whole face contorted when he saw Dean.

"Don't even..." Dean started to say, but Sam just smiled beatifically at him. 

"Brings back memories." Sam headed to the cupboards and started rummaging. He found Lydia's tea supplies and dug until he came up with her jar of specially imported from somewhere expensive honey. "What was her name? Cindy?"

"I hate you." 

"No you don't." The next stop was the refrigerator, from which Sam liberated a gallon of milk, frowned at the label, then reached in for a different gallon—the whole milk instead of skim, Derek was going to throw fits when he found out. "We're just about to get this over with. It's probably better to stay inside."

"No way," Stiles and Dean said simultaneously, while Scott made an affronted noise and Erica scowled. 

"I want to make sure this is over with," Scott put in stubbornly.

"And I'm not letting you call a _fairy_ without me," Dean snarled. A whole series of emotional acrobatics ran over Sam's face. He ended up just putting his head in his hand, shaking it, while Dean flushed to his ears. "You know what I mean!" 

"Sure he does, sparky." Erica patted the top of Dean's head, drumming her nails, surprisingly without getting a hollow sound in return. "Scott, you get legs, I've got the shoulders. If you kick us, we'll drop you and I don't care how much that makes your boyfriend cry." 

"We're brothers," Sam corrected stiffly, while Scott took position at Dean's ankles.

" _Oh_." She eyed him thoughtfully, then shook her head. "Wasted on incest. Ready, Scott? One, two, _three_." 

Together, they lifted, holding Dean up like a cannibal sacrifice in a bad movie. Stiles trailed them all out to the back yard, which he guessed was where the action would be. They dumped their prisoner on the porch, far enough away to be out of the way but close enough to see. Not out of any thought for his preferences, but no one wanted to be the ones to stay with him and miss the action themselves. 

It was nearly dawn, at the point where the stars were just starting to fade. Derek, Isaac and Boyd were using a length of rope to cut out a perfect circle in the grass with their claws while Jackson and Allison sketched something out on the newly bared dirt with white spray paint. Lydia stood to the side holding a laptop and barking out orders like a drill sergeant. The cars huddled behind them in a tight little knot of unlikely hair and skin. CJ waved cheerfully when she saw him, one of her hands clenched in the tail of the Cruiser's t-shirt. 

He waved back awkwardly and edged closer to Scott. "This is so weird."

"I don't get how we know who to call," Scott whispered in Stiles' ear. "Don't you need a name for this stuff or something?"

"Do you really want to question Lydia's methods?" Stiles asked in turn, raising his eyebrows. The effect, he felt, was marred by the new hair in his face. The least the fairy could have done was give him some bangs or something.

Scott's eyes widened and he shook his head, proving that even becoming a werewolf couldn't actually erase all survival instincts. He reached out to grab Stiles' hand nervously while Sam added his part to whatever was currently ruining Derek's lawn, walking a bigger circle with his supplies outside Allison's. It had to be serious if Lydia was donating her honey to the cause. Stiles remembered the last time someone had accidentally used it. He'd been pretty sure they were going to have to hide Isaac's body in the woods or something and abuse the mountain lion excuse again.

"Okay, I think that's the last rune." Allison stood, hauling Jackson up with her. "What now?"

Sam finished his massive circle of honey , tying it off with a figure-eight while everyone else retreated to the porch. "Now, we need a virgin to hold the baby inside the circle."

Awkward silence descended on the back yard. No one made eye contact. 

"Stiles?" His dad shifted the fairy from one hip to the other. His expression was that of a man expecting an answer he really didn't want to hear. 

That was convenient, since it was an answer Stiles really didn't want to give. He just shoved his hands in his pockets and stared up at the sky wordlessly, rocking back on his heels. Whistling seemed like a good idea, but he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, so he just hummed loudly. It was a pretty morning. Very... dark. With a couple clouds and things.

"None of you? Really?" His dad's voice cracked a little, and _man_ , Stiles did not want to see what the rest of him was doing. 

Dean laughed. "What, kids not so little anymore, Uncle Travis? Wait until you hear about—"

Without looking, Stiles swung out a hand to smack the back of Dean's head. Scott and Erica beat him to it.

"Okay," his dad said slowly, "what about one of the cars?"

The Impala looped her arm around the Camaro's shoulders and pointedly looked the other way. The Prius was blushing, and CJ just shrugged. Even the 4Runner stared awkwardly at the ground. Stiles' dad's face was slowly becoming alarmed in a way that promised imminent heart attack.

Sometimes Stiles hated his life.

"Let's not discuss that." Lydia charged in to the rescue, a knight in shining Louboutin's. "I think the baby's just going to have to sit on the grass. Nothing says he has to be held, just that only innocents will be safe in the circle."

"Are you—"

"Just give me the baby—ah!" The baby giggled, then Lydia shrieked, and Stiles looked back down in time to see her face as the cloud of glitter finished settling around her shoulders. She spat out a mouthful, face twisted into a grimace. "Liquorice."

A tiny finger pointed up at her, the little fairy's voice taking a distinctly scolding tone.

She ignored it, marching to the center of the yard art and plopping the fairy down. "Stay there. Owner of the property, your turn." 

As soon as Lydia reached the edge of the circle, Derek pulled a ratty piece of notebook paper from his pocket and started reading in stilted, terrible Irish. It echoed through the back yard, acoustics all wrong for a wide open area. Isaac's face twisted like he was trying hard not to laugh, and Allison had her eyes closed. By the time he finished, his face and eyes were both bright red with embarrassment. 

"What was that?" Erica hissed, elbowing Boyd. 

Boyd rubbed his face tiredly, leaving a smudge of glitter over the bridge of his nose. "Honesty, as created by Google Translate." 

"A translation as unnecessary as it is unfortunate," a smooth, soft voice said. Something moved at the edge of Stiles' vision. He turned his head, but it managed to stay right where he couldn't quite see it. The rest of the pack was doing the same, so it wasn't just him. Only Derek stayed still, staring right in front of him like he could force whatever it was to stay still by sheer force of will. "English is a common language, these days. And one you are less given to mangle."

A second later, it felt like the air sighed, and someone stepped directly into view, in the line between Sam's honey and the circle of dirt. There was no doubt it was a fairy—it had the same sort of too-bright eyes as the baby, and was in the same sort of shapeless knee-length smock. It didn't, however, spread glitter everywhere, which Stiles sort of appreciated, even if it was too late to actually help. 

It tilted its head toward the edge of the circle, and extended a foot as if to cross the line. Where it touched, the air flashed a sizzling blue. Slowly, the fairy turned and smiled at Derek. There were teeth in that smile. "You found what is mine."

He nodded. Stiles could see his hands clench around the notebook. "We did."

"I suppose you want a gift in exchange? That is the custom." The fairy glanced over its shoulder quickly at where its baby was turning grass into tiny animals. A shadow passed through its eyes, turning the green to solid black for a second. "What will it be, Alpha Werewolf?"

Jackson started to open his mouth, but Allison and Boyd closed their hands over it before he could stick his foot in and screw everything up the way he usually did. 

"Just fix the damage your child has done in my territory." The line of Derek's back was stiff. Stiles imagined he was probably still reading off a mental script. That was probably the best thing. Derek wasn't much better than Jackson when it came to accidentally pissing super powered people off. "Then go home, and leave our pack alone, whole and in peace."

For a split second, honest surprise washed over the fairy's face. Then it smoothed back into neutral lines. "Nothing else? No... changes made? No wrongs righted, or troubles vanquished?" Its eyes flitted over the pack. "You have, after all, done me quite a service." 

"We can handle our own problems."

"So I see." A pause, and then the fairy's expression softened. "Wisdom in one so young is rare, but I suspect it did not come from you. We have a bargain."

Raising its hand dramatically, the fairy flicked its fingers in a circle. White light exploded outward. The cars scattered, just in time to shimmer and stretch, turning back into their wheeled versions. From there, the light kept expanding, brushing past them into the woods; Stiles assumed it was going to change the forest back. He was a little disappointed to check his head and find the long hair gone, but only a little. 

"Whole and in peace, as requested." Folding its hands, the fairy stepped aside. "Now, for your part. Let me have my child."

Bending down, Derek slashed his claws across the lines Allison had just finished drawing. As soon as they were gone the fairy dropped the pretense of decorum and rushed in, scooping up its baby from the ground. Half a breath later, they'd vanished as neatly as the fairy had arrived.

Jackson yanked away from Allison and Boyd, who let him go without a fight. "Why didn't you ask for a million dollars or something?" he demanded, jaw set in a firm pout.

"Never trust a fairy," Sam said, snatching the book out of the way when Lydia tried to casually reclaim it. 

"And we don't need money." Derek hooked his thumbs in his pockets, looking around. "We have pack. That's enough." 

"Great. Touching." Dean hopped on his chair, shedding glitter and a hair clip. "Now that you've explained the moral of the story, can someone _please untie me_?"

* * *

Dean settled deeper into the driver's seat, head flopped back while the usual lecture flew right over his head. They'd been sitting in Hale's back yard while the rules of _never ever come back to this city again_ were laid out over. And over. And _over_. 

It was funny at first, the way Hale, Argent and Uncle Travis went back and forth on trying to out-intimidate each other. That was the first five minutes. Then it just got old. Dean had never thought that a day that involved fairies and his car and fucking _werewolves_ would be boring. Even Sam looked ready to get going, and Dean suspected that he actually liked the furry little shits. Sam had a soft spot for assholes for some reason. 

"And if we _ever_ see you around here again—" Hale snarled, and was (again) cut off by Travis.

"—I'll charge you with every crime in the books." 

"That's if I don't catch you first." Argent crossed her arms, glaring, and she was maybe the only one that actually worried Dean a little. She was a kid, yeah, but he could see the killer in her. All it would take would be the right trigger to set her off. He did _not_ want to be around when it did.

"Fate worse than death, jail, death, got it." Dean waved a hand at the gathered crowd of mostly monsters. "Anyone else wanna have a go, or can we finally hit the road?" 

Their baby cousin's buddy, Scott, shook his head and crossed his arms. "Just go." 

"Great!" Before anyone could argue again, Dean jabbed his key in the ignition. It clicked, and completely failed to even slide in. Eyes widening in horror, Dean tried again. And again. Nothing. "No, no, baby, don't do this to me." One more try got the same lack of results—the key wouldn't fit. He dropped his head against the steering wheel.

"Dean?" Sam asked, but Dean just shook his head against the steering wheel and stared despondently forward. The ignition looked completely wrong. Too flat. Too shiny. Baby got an upgrade with her human legs. _Damn it_. 

Fucking fairies.

"Is something wrong?" Stiles leaned over Scott's shoulder, looking actually concerned. Dean might have mistaken it for caring, right up until he said, "You're not gone yet. Why aren't you gone yet? Go. Get. Skedaddle." 

Rolling his eyes, Dean held up his car key. "Doesn't fit. I'm going to need to call someone to get this sorted out. And you guys should probably call that fairy back. This doesn't look like undoing the damage to me." 

"Dude, it's a car key. You just stick it in." Before Dean could stop him, Stiles swiped Baby's key out of his hand and was crawling in through the window. 

"Just stick it in? Do you tell your little girlfriends that?" Dean shoved at the little shit's ribs, but he was already waist-deep and jabbing the key at the ignition. He didn't have any more luck than Dean had, at least. That would have been embarrassing if he had. "Get off!"

"Nope, I think I... Huh that's weird." Stiles slipped in deeper, until his ass in the window was the only thing keeping him from just climbing all the way in. "Hey, Allison, you've got Derek's keys, right? Lemme have them." 

Argent frowned, but reached into her pocket and produced a Frankenkey—one of those ugly ass ones that just stuck the fob right on the end. _Keyless ignition_ bullshit. But Stiles reached right and stuck that bullshit in Baby, gave a twist and she purred to life.

"Awh, isn't that cute?" Stiles cooed, folding his arms in the window. "They switched keys. That's gotta be pretty serious for cars." 

Dean stared at his dash in horror. Slowly, he turned to look at Sam, who'd specifically told him that Baby was fine hanging out with the other cars. "What did you people _do_? Did that— that _thing_..." 

Sam was fighting not to grin. Fighting and failing. "Well, Dean, when two Cheveys really love each other..."

Over Stiles' shoulder, the alpha didn't look any happier than Dean was feeling. "Are you telling me that _my_ car and _his car_..."

"Had raging lesbian sex, yep." Standing up straight, Stiles patted the Impala on the hood. There was a giant, shit-eating grin on his face that, for the first time, really cemented the family resemblance. "Get going. Drive safe. Please forget to write."

Flipping him the bird, Dean took the break off and eased out of the driveway. They still had to get back to the motel to get their stuff and get out, but at least they'd be putting Beacon Hills behind them. The Argents could have it. 

They didn't get even a mile down the road before Sam said, easy as could be, "At least it was a girl car. She's not going to turn up pregnant or anything."

Horror nearly had Dean swerving off the road into a ditch. "Don't even joke like that. Just— don't." 

Sam didn't stop laughing until they hit the highway.


End file.
